Facebook Delete for Everyone is not a Privileged Feature Anymore

Facebook’s Messenger ‘Delete for Everyone‘ was a privileged Feature, which only Mark Zuckerberg could use which brought Facebook under the scope for their approach.

What’s ‘Remove for Everyone’ feature?

On Tuesday Facebook rolled out Delete for Everyone feature for Android & iOS versions of Messenger, allowing you to delete those embarrassing messages of yours even from others messenger chats. Messages which are 10 min old can be deleted using this feature, unlike WhatsApp which allowed for longer duration.

Although for some reasons Facebook decided to rename their ‘Delete‘ button to ‘Remove‘ thus ‘Delete for Everyone‘ becomes ‘Remove for Everyone‘ . Any ideas why they might have done this ? to avoid confusion with in their support staff? as WhatsApp has a delete for everyone option and it is also owned by Facebook.

This feature is also commonly known as “Unsend Feature of Facebook Messenger” as it was believed that once publicly launched it would be known as an Unsend Message Feature but that didn’t happen.

Facebook Messenger ‘Remove for Everyone’ on Android

To use the ‘Remove for Everyone’ a.k.a ‘Delete for Everyone’ feature on an Android device, first make sure to install the latest version of Facebook Messenger, once done just follow the simple procedure:

1. Tap and hold on any message you want to delete for everyone
2. Select the ‘Remove‘ Option from the menu
3. If the message is not older than 10 min you will see a pop-up “Who do you want to remove this message for?” , followed by 2 options :
   • Remove for Everyone
   • Remove for You

4. Select “Remove for Everyone” from the options
5. The message will be deleted and your sent message will start showing “You removed a message” , while the recipient will see “removed a message”

Note: Facebook Messenger has changed “Delete” to “Remove” , previously the option was called Delete on Facebook Messenger.

Facebook Messenger ‘Remove for Everyone’ on iPhone

Facebook has also released the ‘Remove for Everyone’ or commonly known as ‘Delete for Everyone’ feature on iOS devices, the procedure is pretty much same on iPhone as it was on Android, to use the remove for everyone first get the latest version of Facebook Messenger from Apple Store and follow the simple steps :

1. Long press on the message you wish to delete permanently
2. Select ‘Remove’, and then choose ‘Remove for Everyone’.
3. You be presented by a warning stating “You’ll permanently remove this message for all chat members. They can see that you removed a message and still report it, select “Remove“.
4. After the message is deleted, a note will appear that reads “You removed a message” while the recipient will see “removed a message“

Why 10 Minute Restriction on Remove for Everyone ?

Head of Products , Stan Chudnovsky explains

We looked at how the existing delete functionality works. It turns out that when people are deleting messages because it’s a mistake or they sent something they didn’t want to send, it’s under a minute. We decided to extend it to 10, but decided we didn’t need to do more

That is true unless that person is Mark and they decide to remove his year old messages.

Send & Delete -No one to Report

What happens if someone sends a message and deletes it, and keeps doing it , how can you report that conversation where the messages have been replaced with tombstones (placeholder staying “removed a message” is known as a tombstone). It turns out that even if the message is deleted in the chat, Facebook still retains the message on their servers, PR manager Kat Chuii explains :

Facebook will keep a private copy of the message for a short while after it’s deleted to make sure it can review if it’s reported for harassment

“short while” – It is not certain nor explained what this short while might be, basing on Facebook past record I would say they would keep it forever.

Remove for Everyone Works in Secret Conversation ?

No, If you are using the secret conversation feature of Facebook Messenger you can not use the Remove for Everyone or Unsend option, although in secret conversations you are given a timer option where you can set a timer for how long the messages should be visible before they disappear the default value is set to 10 seconds while the maximum is 1 day, even allowing you to turn this setting off.

In Secret Conversation when the timer expires your message completely disappears not even leaving a tombstone , something that was done with Mark Zuckerbergs messages

Hopefully in the future, Facebook won’t give its executives extrajudicial ways to manipulate communications. Mark deleted his year old conversations while Facebook gave users only a 10 minute window, which still shows that they want to keep your own elites above the rest.