Mark Zuckerberg Warns Facebook Users Not To Screenshot Chats

Mark Zuckerberg has issued a warning to all Facebook Messenger users who actively screenshot their chats. 

If there’s one thing we know about social media – it’s ever evolving.

Platforms have changed drastically in the last 10 years, and they’re not going to stop any time soon.

When did Zuckerberg create Facebook?

Zuckerberg co-founded the social media service Facebook alongside his university roommates.

He’s now the chairman, chief executive officer and controlling shareholder of its parent company Meta Platform, after acquiring Instagram in 2012.

His early career, legal troubles, and initial success with Facebook was even turned into a film called The Social Network.

But Zuckerberg is sending a reminder – and warning – to Facebook users… don’t screenshot your chats.

Facebook launched a feature in 2020 that made messages disappear on Facebook and Instagram called Vanish Mode.

And users have found it either extremely annoying – or extremely helpful – depending on what your using it for…

What is Vanish Mode?

Vanish Mode ensured messages disappeared after the recipient had seen them and left the chat.

At the time, Facebook said: “Sometimes a message is just spontaneous – something you want to say in the moment without worrying about it sticking around.

“That’s why we’re excited to introduce Vanish Mode on Messenger, which lets you send messages that disappear automatically.”

Bridget Pujals, Messenger Product Manager, and Manik Singh, Instagram Product Manager, said in a statement (via USA Today): “We designed Vanish Mode with safety and choice in mind, so you control your experience.”

Vanish Mode first dropped in the US but later rolled out to countries in the EU.

It now says on the Facebook Help Center that the feature is ‘no longer supported’, however, there are disappearing messages.

“Disappearing messages are gradually being introduced and may not be available to you yet,” it adds.

The feature can be accessed by clicking on the person’s name you are talking to in Messenger and scrolling down to Privacy and Support, there you will find Disappearing Messages.

What is the screenshot warning?

The description warns: “If someone takes a screenshot or screen recording, a notification will appear in the chat.”

Zuckerberg has warned Facebook Messenger users about screenshotting chats in a post on the social media platform.

It reads: “New update for end-to-end encrypted Messenger chats so you get a notification if someone screenshots a disappearing message.

“We’re also adding GIFs, stickers, and reactions to encrypted chats too.”

The Facebook founder shared an exchange between him and his wife, Priscilla Chan. He made a cheesy joke about a supercomputer and his spouse took a screenshot, demonstrating how the notification will work.

But while all these changes are constantly occurring, what is Zuckerberg’s vision for the future of the platform?

The future of Facebook?

The tech giant formerly laid out his vision to transform Facebook from a social media network into a ‘metaverse company’ in the next five years.

Speaking to The Verge, he noted that people shouldn’t live through ‘small, glowing rectangles.’

“That’s not really how people are made to interact,” he said.

“A lot of the meetings that we have today, you’re looking at a grid of faces on a screen. That’s not how we process things either.”

He added: “In the future, instead of just doing this over a phone call, you’ll be able to sit as a hologram on my couch.

“It’ll actually feel like we’re in the same place, even if we’re in different states or hundreds of miles apart.”