Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram users will now be able to send messages to each other, Mark Zuckerberg has announced.

The Facebook boss said it will introduce the vast overhaul of the way all of its messaging apps work as part of a move towards being a “privacy-focused platform”.

That will include upgrading its encryption and refusing to store data in countries with poor human rights records, he said, as well as rewriting how the various chat apps can talk to each other.

“People want to be able to choose which service they use to communicate with people,” he wrote as part of a long explanation of his vision of the future of social networks. ”However, today if you want to message people on Facebook you have to use Messenger, on Instagram you have to use Direct, and on WhatsApp you have to use WhatsApp.

“We want to give people a choice so they can reach their friends across these networks from whichever app they prefer.”

The feature will eventually include compatibility with SMS, he said, which would for example allow someone to text someone using Facebook Messenger. People will still be able to keep all of those accounts separate if they want.

Facebook birthday: 15 defining moments for the social network Show all 15 1 /15 Facebook birthday: 15 defining moments for the social network Facebook birthday: 15 defining moments for the social network Facebook is born On 4 Feb, 2004, 19-year-old Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg launched a website called 'TheFacebook' from his dorm. Within 24 hours the college social network had more than 1,000 users Wikimedia Commons Facebook birthday: 15 defining moments for the social network Winklevoss twins sue Zuckerberg Within one week of launching, fellow Harvard students Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendra accused Zuckerberg of stealing their idea. It would be four years later when the resulting lawsuit was finally settled Facebook birthday: 15 defining moments for the social network Open for business The social network finally opened it platform to everyone on 26 September, 2006. The move proved the catalyst in supercharging the site's already explosive growth PA Facebook birthday: 15 defining moments for the social network Billion-dollar bid Yahoo offered $1 billion to buy Facebook in September 2006 but Zuckerberg turned it down. 'I don’t know what I could do with the money,' Zuckerberg reportedly said. 'I’d just start another social networking site' Reuters Facebook birthday: 15 defining moments for the social network In the money In September 2009, almost five years since the site launched, Facebook turned a profit for the first time Getty Images/iStockphoto Facebook birthday: 15 defining moments for the social network Taking the lead Facebook overtook MySpace in 2010 to become the world’s most popular social network Facebook birthday: 15 defining moments for the social network Taking on the tech giants In 2011, Google launched its own social network that it hoped would knock Facebook from its perch. Despite its initial success, Google+ ultimately failed and will be shut down completely in 2019 Getty Facebook birthday: 15 defining moments for the social network Facebook goes public On 18 May, 2012, Facebook went public. The initial public offering raised $16 billion – the third largest in US history Facebook birthday: 15 defining moments for the social network Gobbling up the competition Facebook acquired Instagram in April 2012 for $1 billion, consolidating its position as the world's leading social network Reuters Facebook birthday: 15 defining moments for the social network One billion users On 4 October, 2012, Zuckerberg announced that Facebook had hit 1 billion users. 'If you’re reading this: thank you for giving me and my little team the honour of serving you,' he wrote in a blog post Getty Images Facebook birthday: 15 defining moments for the social network Expanding its empire In February 2014 Facebook acquired the messaging app WhatsApp for $19.3 billion REUTERS/Dado Ruvic Facebook birthday: 15 defining moments for the social network Two billion users In June 2017, Facebook passed the 2 billion user milestone REUTERS/Dado Ruvic Facebook birthday: 15 defining moments for the social network Privacy scandal On 17 March 2018, news broke that UK firm Cambridge Analytica had harvested data from around 87 million Facebook users for the purpose of political profiling in the build up to the 2016 US presidential elections Shutterstock Facebook birthday: 15 defining moments for the social network Record profits Despite the scandals and subsequent #DeleteFacebook campaign, Facebook posted record profits just before its 15th anniversary, the equivalent of $7.37 from each of its 2.32 billions users iStock/Independent Facebook birthday: 15 defining moments for the social network Unhappy users A study found that people are happier when they don’t use Facebook, adding to mounting evidence surrounding the impact social media has on mental health Rex Features

Adding that feature – which Mr Zuckerberg calls “interoperability” – will feed into the privacy focus by allowing people to avoid sending unencrypted SMS messages from Messenger and instead talking on WhatsApp, where conversations are hidden, he claimed. People would also be able to speak to someone on Facebook but do so without having to give out their phone number, he suggested.

But the possibility of combining the apps has been a long-standing source of concern for privacy advocates and using. WhatsApp and Instagram founders have left the company in recent months, reportedly after disagreements over how those various platforms should work together in future.

In the post, titled “a privacy-focused vision for social networking,” Mr Zuckerberg explained how private messaging is becoming the most common and popular method people use to interact with others on its products.

“As I think about the future of the internet, I believe a privacy-focused communications platform will become even more important than today’s open platforms,” Zuckerberg wrote. “I expect future versions of Messenger and WhatsApp to become the main ways people communicate on the Facebook network.”

In his letter, Mr Zuckerberg detailed why people prefer private networks and the intimacy it offers them.

“People are more cautious of having a permanent record of what they’ve shared,” Mr Zuckerberg added. “I believe the future of communication will increasingly shift to private, encrypted services where people can be confident what they say to each other stays secure and their messages and content won’t stick around forever. This is the future I hope we will help bring about.”

In addition to interoptability, he said Facebook would focus on several principles as it tried to create the future of social networking:

Private interactions. People should have simple, intimate places where they have clear control over who can communicate with them and confidence that no one else can access what they share.Encryption. People’s private communications should be secure. End-to-end encryption prevents anyone — including us — from seeing what people share on our services.Permanence. People should be comfortable being themselves, and should not have to worry about what they share coming back to hurt them later. So we won’t keep messages or stories around for longer than necessary to deliver the service or longer than people want it.Safety. People should expect that we will do everything we can to keep them safe on our services within the limits of what’s possible in an encrypted service.Interoperability. People should be able to use any of our apps to reach their friends, and they should be able to communicate across networks easily and securely.Secure data storage. People should expect that we won’t store sensitive data in countries with weak records on human rights like privacy and freedom of expression in order to protect data from being improperly accessed. Mark Zuckerberg

The changes will be taking place “over the next year and beyond”, said Mr Zuckerberg, noting there will be “more details and tradeoffs to work through related to each of these principles”.

“Doing this means taking positions on some of the most important issues facing the future of the internet. As a society, we have an opportunity to set out where we stand, to decide how we value private communications, and who gets to decide how long and where data should be stored,” he concluded.