Summary
- Meta is now allowing you to connect WhatsApp to Accounts Center for streamlined settings and cross-platform sharing.
- Integration is not automatic — users must manually enable it, and it will change how Meta handles some of your data.
- It seems like Meta is trying to remove as many barriers bwetween WhatsApp and its other apps as possible.
Meta is making it possible to bring your Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp accounts even closer together. The company announced that it’s now possible to add WhatsApp to Accounts Center, the company’s one-stop shop for managing how your information is used across Meta’s platforms, which will let you adjust your settings in one convenient place and share status updates across Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp all at once.
This integration is not enabled by default. According to Meta, “your account is separate from other apps and no one but you can change that.” So, if you want to reap the benefits of a more connected WhatsApp account, you’ll need to toggle it on manually yourself. The feature comes with some changes to how your information is used, too. “Meta will use your information…to do things like provide, personalize, and improve its products and services, including to show you ads,” a support article about the change says. What’s shared in messages and calls remains end-to-end-encrypted, however, so Meta is only using what it can glean from the rest of your WhatsApp account.
WhatsApp Messenger
WhatsApp is the world’s biggest instant messaging service, and it provides a full end-to-end encryption experience out of the box.
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The messaging platform was originally acquired in 2014
Meta
With WhatsApp added to Accounts Center, you’ll specifically be able to cross-post updates to your Status on WhatsApp (“My Status”) to both your Facebook and Instagram Story. Meta also says logging in to WhatsApp should become simpler, and at some point in the future, you’ll be able to manage Meta Avatars, Meta AI stickers, and Imagine Me creations.
WhatsApp gets updated every year, multiple times a year. The app just got a bunch of new ways to customize your messages, and it’ll likely get another round of tweaks soon. Making it possible to connect WhatsApp to Accounts Center feels notable if only because another barrier was removed between WhatsApp and the rest of Meta’s apps.
The company acquired the messaging app in 2014, but it’s long felt like a separate entity from Meta’s social media apps because of its utility. Lots of people use WhatsApp as their main way of calling and messaging people over their phone’s stock apps. Over the years, Meta’s brought WhatsApp closer to its other apps, but now it’s starting to feel like the company sees it as interchangeable with everything else.
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