Facebook is prototyping a feature to mimic Instagram ’s Close Friends feature , which allow users to share some content with a select group of friend rather than everyone they ’re connected with on the program — a lineament that might prove helpful for anyone hoping to keep snoopers out of their feed .

Now , Facebook has developed a prototype for Messenger shout out Favorites that would allow users to apportion , with a select group of masses , tale that finally go away after a short period of time . The code was spot by app researcher Jane Manchun Wong in the Android app and reported byTechCrunchlast week .

Do n’t expect it anytime soon , though . A spokesperson for the Messenger team told Gizmodo there are no immediate plans for a rollout . The interpreter say in a statement that Favorites “ is n’t a feature we are testing and we have no architectural plan to plunge it at this metre . ”

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Facebook / Messenger is testing " Favorites " tilt for Stories

It ’s like Instagram ’s Close Friendspic.twitter.com/dsIinrX1Zd

— Jane Manchun Wong ( @wongmjane)November 21 , 2019

Argentina’s President Javier Milei (left) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., holding a chainsaw in a photo posted to Kennedy’s X account on May 27. 2025.

As demonstrate by mockups generated by Wong and sustain by the Messenger spokesperson , the feature would essentially lick by allow users to pick out between sharing Stories via Messenger with their Favorites rather than all of their friend on Messenger .

Close Friends launched on Instagram Stories last November as a mode to boost sharing for “ more personal moments with a pocket-sized group that you pick out , ” thecompany saidat the time . Like Instagram ’s feature , Favorites would allow users to push their account on Messenger to a small chemical group of multitude individually ( not in a chemical group chat , though you may still use Messenger for group chats outside of Stories ) .

If this all sounds a fiddling puzzling , it ’s because Facebook and its so - call “ menage of apps ” use a lot of the same language to describe puppet across its various platforms and the company is notorious forcopycatting pop featuresfrom its competitors . The biggest difference is that Facebook ’s principal app has been completely mired in dirt over user secrecy .

William Duplessie

Putting apart the fact that its other apps have also been the focusing of privacy outrage , they ’re all still operated by the same data point - hungry and recklessly negligent White House who first bring in us Facebook . Most companies would require to de - emphasize a toxic make . The fact that it’srebranding all its appswith the Facebook recording label have more conspicuously and creating superposable feature across multiple platforms is a small baffling , to say the least .

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