Instagram users have been able to use their Facebook account to chat and share content but that support will be ending soon.

Instagram and Messenger will no longer be available for chatting with friends in the near future.

Jim HendlerDecember 5, 23 instagram, Meta

The headline must have scared you, but that’s not the whole truth. As you may know, Meta continues to use many of the features that have been taken for granted in Messenger for many years. The messaging app now loses access to Instagram users, meaning that any chats between Instagram and Messenger were possible, Meta shuts it down.

The new changes will take effect from mid-December, which could be around December 15. Meta has not given specific reasons for making these changes, but it has been suggested that the company aims to comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which imposes strict rules on technology companies such as Meta and Apple.

The new rules oblige apps like Instagram to support communication with other non-Meta apps, and it’s likely that Meta is planning these changes by severing the links between Instagram and Messenger, as both are in-house apps. What do the new changes mean for users and do they apply to all Messenger users? According to the news detailed support page, people cannot use their Facebook account on Instagram for calls or messages. In addition to these, you will also see the following changes:

– Previous chats where you used a Facebook account are now in read-only mode, and you can no longer post conversations in that thread.

– Facebook ID cannot be used to see activity status or message alerts

– Any conversation you use with another person’s Facebook ID is not available in the Facebook mailbox.

DMA has already pulled Apple up and forced the company to use the USB C port on iPhones first, which became a reality with this year’s iPhone 15 series. The company is also under pressure to allow third-party app stores on iOS and also provide access to other iPhone search engines by default.

But back to Messenger, Meta seems to have lost interest in the platform. The Messenger Lite app was recently shut down on Android, while the original Messenger app also lost text messaging support from September this year.