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Facebook wants to establish Instagram and WhatsApp ownership by adding “from Facebook” to the names of both platforms. In other words, the official name of Instagram will be “Instagram from Facebook”, and it will be included in the branding of WhatsApp.
Last week, a spokesperson for Facebook verified the news with The Information. “We want to be clearer about Facebook products and services,” they informed the outlet.
The name change comes in the wake of an extensive antitrust investigation by the United States. The Federal Trade Committee examines whether Facebook has acquired the two platforms in an attempt to thwart competition in the social media market.
According to the Daily Dot, the above decision reverses Facebook’s initial efforts to maintain Instagram and WhatsApp branding unaffected by the many privacy controversies of the parent company.
The outlet claims that the position of Mark Zuckerberg has shifted. Facebook is now being positioned as a privacy platform.
The change is also expected to favor Facebook’s perception as it shows customers that the business is reportedly accountable for both Instagram and WhatsApp’s increased popularity.
“We believe Instagram has been able to use Facebook’s infrastructure to grow more than twice as quickly as it would have on its own,” said Zuckerberg, in a probably defiant move against Instagram’s co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger last year.
The co-founders left in October after accusing the Facebook CEO of excessive control.
The new names of both platforms will appear in the Apple App Store and Google Play titles. The Verge notes that although “from Facebook” has not yet been formally added to the splash screens, this can probably change.
This recent addition comes soon after it was disclosed that Mark Zuckerberg plans to integrate the three Facebook messaging services – WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger – by the end of 2019 or early 2020.
This move would strengthen an increased level of privacy for users, with end-to-end encryption stopping anyone else from viewing the content than those sending the messages.
Author
- Anirudh is the Editor in Chief and Main Writer at Clickdotme. He does not like describing himself in the third-person and had a hard time coming up with these two sentences!
