Disappearing messages don’t impress security professionals, given how flimsy a privacy protection they offer, but despite an inherently fickle form the feature keeps recurring on comms platforms.
The latest to add what it calls an “ unsend ” feature is mobile messaging platform Telegram — which is now letting users retrieve (i.e. delete) messages within two days of sending them, once they update to v3.16 of its app.
Secure messaging app Signal also recently added an ephemeral messaging feature, back in October — albeit for ‘tidiness’, not privacy.
Telegram’s unsend feature works within one-to-one and group messaging scenarios, and has to be enacted within the 48 hour window. It says the idea is to serve users with ‘morning after messaging regret’ by letting them scrub stuff they wish they’d never said.
