Facebook Secret Conversations

With Facebook secret conversations option that we discuss here today, you can communicate with your Facebook friends one hundred percent safely and securely and this is the major benefit of this feature. Further in this Facebook secret conversations guide, we explain how this option work, what it offers, and finally how to get started.

When you want to make sure that only you and the person you communicate with using Facebook Messenger can access and view the content of your messages, you turn to Facebook secret conversations. This great Facebook Messenger feature essentially lets you fully encrypt or end-to-end encrypt your text messages as well as images, videos, and files that you share so nobody without the required encryption key that only you and the intended recipient have can access, view, or interfere with your secret messages.

When you are using Facebook Messenger to communicate online with your Facebook friends, your messages are already encrypted in certain ways but not end-to-end encrypted. This is where the Facebook secret conversations feature enters the game. With the same feature, you also have control over how long your private messages can be accessed by the intended recipient. In other words, with Facebook secret conversations, you can send self destruct text messages that self destruct after five seconds up to twenty-four hours.

Facebook and Its Security Features

In the world of instant messaging services and apps, Facebook developed and launched by Facebook Inc. back in 2004 remains one of the most used online communication channels. The service was founded by Mark Zuckerberg, Chris Hughes, Dustin Moskovitz, and Eduardo Saverin and at the time, all of them were Harvard University students. As estimated back in 2012, Facebook had over one billion active users which makes it the most prominent social media platform globally.

To get started with Facebook, you just head to the Facebook official website or get the Facebook app from the Play Store or App Store depending on which device you use. Registering takes several minutes as you are required to provide your name, location, and your email address. If you prefer, you can also provide your phone number and other personal information. Once you are done, you can post photos, share music that you like, and of course, communicate with others even those who are not on your Facebook friends list.

In addition to Facebook Messenger that is an instant messaging app, Facebook has many other features such as status posts and timeline posts. When it comes to the service and its security measures besides Facebook secret conversations, the company offers a bunch of different security features to help you protect your private data such as two-factor authentication and login alerts. These doubtlessly add extra security layers.

When using Facebook, you can edit your security settings whenever you want. In addition to using two-factor authentication and authorized login options, you can also set Facebook Messenger passwords. Moreover, you can also get alerted every time unrecognized logins appear. Using one-time passwords is also a great idea to keep your Facebook account safe and secure.

Unlike popular instant messaging apps empowered with end-to-end encryption such as Signal, WhatsApp, and Telegram, your Facebook conversations are not end-to-end encrypted unless you use Facebook secret conversations. The company responsible for the service has announced that end-to-end encryption technology will empower the Facebook app but this may take several years to be completed. Until then, you need to turn to secret conversations for that extra online and data privacy and security.

What is Facebook Secret Conversations?

As mentioned in the previous section, Facebook plans to integrate end-to-end encryption into all its services and apps including Facebook Messenger by default. However, until this happens, the best option you have to protect your Facebook private conversations is to use the Facebook secret conversations option.

When you enable this option, you get to communicate with any of your Facebook friends in a safe, end-to-end encrypted space. These messages you send using the option cannot be seen by anyone including the company responsible for the service. The Facebook secret conversations option provides you and the intended recipient with special keys that are required to engage in such chats. Facebook messages you send using this option can only be accessed on the device you have used to send to create Facebook secret conversations so you will not be able to access these secret chats using any of your other devices.

As mentioned at the beginning, the service with its Facebook secret conversations option lets you set the self destruct timer on your secret messages. For instance, if you set a self destruct timer on your secret Facebook message at five seconds, a self destruct time instantly appears and a countdown shows for how long the secret message is available before it self destructs. If you choose this option, your secret messages can be available for up to twenty-four hours.

It is also important to note that Facebook secret conversations appear in black message bubbles, unlike standard Facebook messages that appear in blue message bubbles. This way you always know whether the Facebook secret conversations option is turned on or off. You will also notice that secret chats display the “Encrypted from one device to the other” message. At the time of writing this guide, the Facebook secret conversations option is available to Android and iOS users.

How to Get Started with Facebook Secret Conversations?

Before we explain how to get started with Facebook secret conversations, it is worth mentioning that you can have standard Facebook conversations and Facebook secret conversations with the same person at the same time. Now, let see how to start a secret conversation using Facebook Messenger. Naturally, the very first step is to get the Facebook Messenger app from the Google Play Store or App Store.

• Open the Facebook Messenger app on your mobile device
• Click on your account picture located in the upper left corner
• Head to Secret Conversations and enable the option
• Go back to the Me section once the option has been enabled
• Click on the blue pencil button located in the upper right corner
• Click on the Secret button
• Find your Facebook friend you want to start a secret chat
• The self destruct timer is set at ten seconds
• If you want to change this, click on the timer button and pick between five seconds and twenty-four hours