Facebook Messenger & Messenger Kids undergo massive redesign, will remove Discover tab

The dedicated messenger app of Facebook, Facebook Messenger, is going through a massive redesign for both Android and iOS platforms. In the update, Facebook is said to be ditching the chatbots and letting go of the Discover tab as a part of the more significant redesign. Here is everything you must know about the new Facebook Messenger update.

Also read: This Is What The New, Upcoming Facebook Messenger Desktop App Could Look Like

A move to focus on speed and simplicity

According to reports by a leading technology portal, the upcoming changes are meant to be a part of the more substantial Messenger platform redesign. They also said that the new update reorients the People tab around Stories as Facebook Stories tries to dominate the expiring content segment, which was inspired by Snapchat Stories. The reports mention how, under the leadership of Stan Chudnovsky, the app has been streamlined to work as a functional messaging app.

Also read: Facebook Messenger For Kids Causes Huge Safety And Privacy Blunder, Allows Children To Talk To Strangers

In the new design, Facebook is promoting a ‘People’ section. The new section contains large squares that are dedicated to friends who have recently posted/updated their Facebook stories. Another significant redesign that can be noticed is the organisation of the contact list to show the most used contacts who are online and active on top and the others below them, based on the frequency of contacting.

Also read: Facebook Messenger Is Becoming More And More Like WhatsApp

Apart from these visual changes, Instant Games and Transportation features will also be removed from the chat composer’s utility tray. They will be moved inside the app and will require dedicated searches to find them. The changes mentioned above will take place during the span of the next week, and many users will start to notice these differences while using the Facebook Messenger app.

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Makers to tweak Messenger Kids along with Facebook Messenger

In order to provide parents with access and more control over what their kids are doing on the Messenger Kids app, the developers added an array of new privacy and parental control features on the parental control dashboard. The parents will now be able to access data like who their kids are talking to, whether they are video calling their contacts, and if they have blocked anyone on the app through the app’s parental control dashboard. Facebook Messenger for Kids was launched back in 2017, and it had received a lot of criticism over privacy issues.

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