Zuckerberg aims to merge Instagram, Whatsapp and Facebook messages

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced his company would be integrating messaging apps as part of a new strategy, he claimed, where the company's platform would be focused on users’ privacy.

Facebook will be looking to build a “simpler platform”, Zuckerberg said in a blogpost.

“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,” he wrote.

“Privacy gives people the freedom to be themselves and connect more naturally, which is why we build social networks.”

The simpler platform will be built on six core principles: private interactions, encryption, reducing permanence, safety, interoperability, and secure data storage. This is a similar approach it took to its development of WhatsApp.

Part of the new platform will be a new messaging service built with privacy in mind, with features such as end-to-end encryption and 'ephemerality', so chats disappear by default after a month or year as users decide.

“I understand that many people don’t think Facebook can or would even want to build this kind of privacy-focused platform – because frankly we don’t currently have a strong reputation for building privacy protective services, and we’ve historically focused on tools for more open sharing,” he wrote.

“But we’ve repeatedly shown that we can evolve to build the services that people really want, including in private messaging and stories.”

Nevertheless, there may be a catch for users, while implementing end-to-end encryption will prevent Facebook from collecting data on the content of its users’ messages, it has not vowed to stop collecting information from other aspects of the platform.