Three years after its inception, Meta has opted to disable Facebook and Instagram's cross-messaging feature.

In 2020, the firm developed cross-app chats, which allow users from both platforms to communicate easily. There were also intentions to further interoperability, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg stating that he wanted all of Meta's messaging apps to function together. But those hopes have been dashed, since a freshly revised Instagram Help Center website specifies that communication will terminate in "mid-December 2023". An exact date was not provided.

The support webpage explains what would happen following deactivation. In addition to being unable to "start new conversations or calls," all previous chats initiated with a Facebook account will now be read-only. Facebook users will be unable to access an Instagram profile's Activity Status or read receipts. Furthermore, Meta will not move any chats to Messenger. If you wish to start a new chat, you must start from scratch on the appropriate platform.

Prepare for the future. Right now, we've got no understanding why this is currently occurring. Meta has yet to provide an official statement explaining the change. However, 9To5Google believes it may be related to Europe's Digital Market Act (DMA).

To summarize, the European Union passed the DMA in 2022 to prevent powerful tech businesses (referred to as "gatekeepers" in the bill) from obtaining a monopoly over the tech industry. One of the stipulations of the regulation is that these large enterprises must "offer interoperability between messaging platforms" and fall under EU jurisdiction. It's worth noting that Meta has been reducing up its Messenger service for some time now, including discontinuing support for the SMS standard and shutting down Messenger Lite.

Instead, the corporation might use WhatsApp as its primary, DMA-compliant messaging provider. WABetaInfo discovered proof of this in September, when Meta worked on allowing WhatsApp users to send texts to third-party apps. There is no information on when this support will be formally introduced, but it might happen soon. The DMA requires all corporations identified as gatekeepers to comply with the regulation by March 6, 2024.

We contacted Meta and asked if they could provide an exact date for when the cross-chat feature will be turned off, as well as explain why. The story will be updated at a later stage.