Instagram and WhatsApp are now officially called ‘from Facebook’
Instagram and WhatsApp undergo a “rebranding”. From now on they get a new name where the name of parent company Facebook will be central. The apps are renamed ‘Instagram from Facebook’ and ‘Whatsapp from Facebook’.
The new names will be shown in app stores and in the apps themselves, although they will not be displayed on the home screen of users’ phones. “We want to be clearer about the products and services that are part of Facebook,” says a Facebook spokesperson.
In recent years, the social network has been plagued by numerous scandals, mostly with regard to user privacy and security issues, while Whatsapp and Instagram remained relatively crisis-free.
Facebook initially granted the teams behind the apps a relatively large autonomy, but Facebook is now trying to gain more control over the applications and that does not always go smoothly. The co-founders of Instagram and Whatsapp have already stepped up in recent years.
According to the rumors because the tensions between them and Mark Zuckerberg were too high. The Facebook CEO would, after all, be driving towards an ever-increasing integration of the various services.
After all, Facebook has now also developed an ambitious long-term plan that should allow users to send messages between the various apps and the Facebook messaging app Messenger.
There is also an antitrust investigation by the US Federal Trade Commission above Facebook. That will focus at least in part on the acquisition of apps such as Instagram and Whatsapp and on whether these acquisitions were anti-competitive. Closer integration may be an attempt to avert antitrust measures.
