Facebook users reject move to force them to use Messenger app

THE users of Facebook have a message for the social media giant over its latest change: we know what you’re doing and we don’t like it.

A big logo created from pictures of Facebook users worldwide is pictured in the company's Data Center, its first outside the ...

THE users of Facebook have a message for the social media giant: we know what you’re doing and we don’t like it.

Facebook is removing the ability to send messages directly to your Facebook friends, forcing its users to download the separate app Messenger if they want to keep sending messages in that way.

The catch, as Professor of Marketing Sam Fiorella highlights in his blog, is that using the Messenger app means ticking the “I accept” box to some nasty terms and conditions.

Those terms means letting the app send SMS messages, record audio and take pictures — all without having to let you know what it’s doing.

The reaction from Facebook users has been direct in its message: we don’t like it.

Hey @facebook, I'll never install the messenger app. I'll call people first.

— Reeder (@thatreeder) July 31, 2014

Facebook's new Messenger app. is right out of George Orwell. C'mon...my friends, my photos, my location and my calendar? Heil Facebook!

— Catherine Marsden (@cmardentscope) July 31, 2014

Being forced into #facebook messenger app is possibly the best advertisment Windows phones have ever had.

— Bryan (@Backflip25) July 31, 2014

That's it. Deleting this messenger app.

— Joselito Santos Jr. (@TeeenderJuicy) July 31, 2014

"Hate our app? Well wait until you see our messenger app we're forcing you to use!" -- #Facebook

— Donna Young (@dawn_uh) July 31, 2014

This Facebook messenger app is quite possibly the dumbest thing ever

— Kennon Riley (@texasfury93) July 31, 2014

The move to boost the Messager app is the latest in Facebook’s hit and misses in its aim to take on the challenge of the rise in messenger apps, which includes a failed $3 billion offer to buy Snapchat, which today has been valued at $10 billion, and the $19 billion buyout of WhatsApp.

If you don’t want Messenger, there are options the first of which is don’t download it.

For now, you can still send messages in the iPad and Windows phone app, and by logging on to Facebook through a web browsers.

Or you can use an alternative, such as WhatsApp, iMessage, Snapchat or, well, just give them a call and have a chat.