Users should avoid taking screenshots of their chats unless they want to be caught doing so, according to Mark Zuckerberg.
The CEO and founder of Facebook said that Messenger users may now receive notifications if someone else snaps a picture of their conversation.
“New update for end-to-end encrypted Messenger chats so you get a notification if someone screenshots a disappearing message,” Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post in January 2022.
The announcement followed another significant change to Facebook Messenger, which caused messages to vanish.
These, which are already available on a number of rival social media platforms (like Snapchat), let users send messages that will immediately disappear from the screen.
According to The Independent, the capability has currently been made available to Facebook users in the United States and is anticipated to be extended to those in Europe soon.
Snapchat has long offered screenshot notifications, and the tool has been widely used there for a number of years.
According to reports, security concerns led to the introduction of the upgrade, which also affects Instagram, owned by parent company Meta.
In the meantime, there have been a variety of responses to Zuckerberg’s post, which has received over 94,000 comments. Many have pointed out that there are several ways to trick the screenshot notice.
“Screen recorder will do I guess,” wrote one person.
“What if someone used another mobile phone to take a photo of the conversation?” proposed an additional one.
“Now we will use another mobile for capturing photos instead of screenshots,” agreed on a third.
“You turn the wifi and data off, then you take the screenshot. You turn it on again, and you keep messaging like a hero,” added a fourth tech-savvy user.
Some expressed dissatisfaction with the upgrade and suggested that Facebook direct its efforts towards more urgent matters.
“I have to say, what you’ve accomplished IS super cool. However… I wish the same energy was put into making REAL LIFE better for humanity instead of the virtual one. Nothing will ever be better than human-to-human connection & interaction,” one person wrote.