Facebook Messenger's new message threads keep it all together

For users of Facebook Messenger that aren’t quite quick enough to get a reply in before their conversation has moved on, the social media giant has finally answered your needs.

As first reported by VentureBeat, Facebook has begun rolling out a new feature to Messenger that allows users to respond to specific messages in a chat rather than to the last received message.

When long-pressing on any message in a group or solo conversation – whether it be a GIF, video, image or just text – the option to reply directly will appear next to the series of emoji reactions that have been available for some time.

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Messenger has seen a string of updates recently, with the ability to unsend messages and a new dark mode rolling out in the last few months. 

Considering Facebook intends to integrate WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger by 2020, it’s likely that more pre-existing features from each platform will be shared to the others. 

Facebook hopes that having a more unified infrastructure for its messaging and social platforms will help keep its users’ data secure, such as would be allowed by Instagram and Messenger adopting the end-to-end encryption already in use by WhatsApp, for instance.

This push has been outlined by Mark Zuckerberg in an extensive post about Facebook’s change of focus from public posts to private messages – a response to the user data controversies the platform experienced in recent years.

• Facebook says it's switching focus from public posts to private messages