(Image source from: pymnts.com)

Signing up into the Facebook messenger app without a Facebook account has now been quietly disabled.Previously, phone number was enough in order to sign up to Facebook messenger which has been disabled now.

“If you’re new to messenger, you’ll notice that you need a Facebook account to chat with friends and close connections,” said a spokesperson through mail. “we found that the vast majority of people who use messenger already log in through Facebook and we want to simplify the process. If you already use messenger without a Facebook account, no need to do anything.” he added.

Few messenger users without a Facebook account have reported that, an error message was received when tried to login with the phone numbers.

The change might anticipated in providing integrated and a unified experience of Facebook’s various messaging apps, that include WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger. CEO Mark Zuckerbergh wrote in a bog post, “People should be able to use any of our apps to reach their friends, and they should be able to communicate across networks easily and securely.”

He added saying, “We plan to start by making it possible for you to send messages to your contacts using any of our services, and then to extend that interoperability to SMS too.”

By Shrithika Kushangi