According to TechCrunch, Facebook confirmed with the online site that it was still working on a feature that would allow Messenger users to “Unsend” previously sent messages, but provided no concrete delivery date for the feature.
At the current moment, the prototype “Unsend” button seems to still be in early stage. TechCrunch’s own tipster indicates that the feature will now allow you to remove messages from both sides of the conversation. Rather than just deleting messages from the inbox. Unsurprisingly, there’s also a time limit over the period of deletion, meaning that messages will become permanent beyond that limit. To be fair, the ability to “Unsend” a message on a messaging app isn’t new. Both WhatsApp and Telegram have the same capability. The former giving its users up to an hour, eight minutes, and 16 seconds to delete their messages.
Demand for the “Unsend” feature first came to light back in April this year, when several Facebook users complained that Mark Zuckerberg had sent private messages to them, only to have them deleted from their inbox unwillingly. Users saw this as a violation of trust by Facebook, as well as an abuse of power. On the simple grounds that Messenger didn’t have an “Unsend” button, and still doesn’t to date. If anything, the feature would be exceedingly useful to people who wish to delete a message that would otherwise be misconstrued as offensive, or just downright inappropriate. (Source: TechCrunch)
