Quietly screenshotting a private chat to forward it later is a habit Messenger is about to make awkward. On 4 February 2022 Mark Zuckerberg announced that in end-to-end encrypted conversations, Messenger will now notify the other person when you take a screenshot of a disappearing message. The same update brings GIFs, stickers, reactions and message replies to encrypted chats, which had been missing them.
When the warning fires, and when it does not
This is the part most headlines got wrong. The alert applies only to chats that are end-to-end encrypted, the "secret conversations" you start from the lock icon, and to vanish mode, where messages disappear after they are seen. In an ordinary Messenger chat, the default for almost everyone in Bangladesh, nothing changes: you can still screenshot freely and nobody is told. Instagram and WhatsApp behave the same way; WhatsApp does not notify screenshots at all, though it blocks them for view-once media.
Nor does the notification stop anyone. A person can photograph the screen with a second phone, and the alert only tells the sender it happened. It is a nudge for honesty, not a technical lock.
Why encrypted Messenger matters here
Messenger, not WhatsApp, is the default messenger in Bangladesh: it comes with the Facebook account almost every smartphone owner already has. But regular Messenger chats are encrypted only between you and Meta's servers, where they can be read, which is why leaked chats keep surfacing in harassment cases and why a government request can produce message contents. End-to-end encryption means only the two phones hold the key.
The new features rolled out first in the United States, with other regions to follow within weeks. Meta has said it plans to make encryption the default across Messenger in 2023.
How to start an encrypted chat today
- Open the person's profile in Messenger (tap their name at the top of the chat).
- Choose Go to secret conversation. A lock icon appears next to their name.
- Optionally set a timer so messages disappear after they are read.
Secret conversations live only on the device you started them from, so they will not show up on your laptop. For anything you would not want forwarded, that trade-off is the point.
Update: Messenger switched all personal chats to end-to-end encryption by default in December 2023.
