The social media giant has launched Facebook Messenger, a cross-platform messaging app for Instagram and Facebook that allows Facebook users to send messages from Facebook itself to someone on Instagram and vice versa. New features such as SELPHY stickers, masked messages, chat colors and themes, and custom illustrations have also been added to the messaging software. However, users can also disable cross-platform messaging if desired. In this case, the messenger has an updated functionality, but it remains the same as in the previous direct messaging app.

There are also specific privacy concerns regarding this update. So, here’s how to enable cross-platform messaging and change your privacy settings

Facebook Instagram cross-app messaging: How to set up

1. To set this, users need to make sure they have an updated version of the Facebook Messenger and Instagram apps.
2. Users must open Instagram, go to settings, and select the update message. On the next screen that appears, you need to click Update to link your Facebook account to your Instagram account.
3. By default, the Facebook cross-platform messaging option is enabled. In addition, the default profile is set to public, which allows Instagram users to search for their contacts and send messages. This can be changed in the settings.

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Cross-platform messaging: Ensuring privacy

• To change the privacy settings in Facebook Messenger, users must take the following steps.
• Go to the messenger app and click on the profile icon. This should be in the upper right corner of the screen.
• In the menu that appears, select Privacy and go to the Message delivery option.
• There are three Instagram-related privacy settings that you need to adjust according to your preferences. For all these settings, the user must choose one of the three options: chat, request messages and do not receive the request. Here are the settings – Accounts you follow or chat with on Instagram, Followers on Instagram, and more on Instagram.
  With these settings in place, Messenger will categorize messages from Instagram as you wish.To ensure the privacy of Instagram messages, you need to review the following steps
• Go to Settings and click on Privacy.
• Select Message and configure the three Facebook-related settings. The options are the same here-chat, message request, no request. The three settings are a friend on Facebook or someone you talk to on Messenger, someone who has your phone number, and someone else on Facebook.