<p class="title">Facebook said Friday it is trying to get its messaging apps to be friends, allowing encrypted missives be exchanged no matter which of its services are used.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The leading social network is behind free, stand-alone smartphone apps Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Each service is popular, but users have to be in the same application to exchange to connect.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"We're working on making more of our messaging products end-to-end encrypted and considering ways to make it easier to reach friends and family across networks," a Facebook spokeswoman said in reply to an AFP inquiry regarding a New York Times report about the effort.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"As you would expect, there is a lot of discussion and debate as we begin the long process of figuring out all the details of how this will work."</p>.<p class="bodytext">Facebook hoped to get the messaging apps communicating with one another, while remaining separate services, by the end of this year or early next year, according to the Times report.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Each of the Facebook-owned messaging services boasts more than a billion users. End-to-end encryption would mean messages exchanged between the services would be scrambled to hide contents from snooping.</p>
<p class="title">Facebook said Friday it is trying to get its messaging apps to be friends, allowing encrypted missives be exchanged no matter which of its services are used.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The leading social network is behind free, stand-alone smartphone apps Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Each service is popular, but users have to be in the same application to exchange to connect.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"We're working on making more of our messaging products end-to-end encrypted and considering ways to make it easier to reach friends and family across networks," a Facebook spokeswoman said in reply to an AFP inquiry regarding a New York Times report about the effort.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"As you would expect, there is a lot of discussion and debate as we begin the long process of figuring out all the details of how this will work."</p>.<p class="bodytext">Facebook hoped to get the messaging apps communicating with one another, while remaining separate services, by the end of this year or early next year, according to the Times report.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Each of the Facebook-owned messaging services boasts more than a billion users. End-to-end encryption would mean messages exchanged between the services would be scrambled to hide contents from snooping.</p>