Now You Need to Sign Up Facebook Account to Use Messenger

Now users need to have a Facebook Account to sign up to Facebook's instant messaging platform, Messenger and Messenger Lite. The social media platform has pushed out this update for new users.

According to the VentureBeat report, Facebook has confirmed to them that any new user signing up for Messenger henceforth. The company's justification is that it found a vast majority of Messenger users already logging in through Facebook, and it wanted to make the process easier.

Till now, Messenger used to allow new users to sign up for the service with their phone numbers. That facility has been changed now. The company said that users who already have a Messenger account without linking it to their Facebook account would not be affected.

But soon a Messenger user posted on Reddit that after the update, their account was restricted. They signed up to the service using their phone number. As the update is new, Facebook might be still working on the handshake of moving the sign up functionality without a Facebook account.

"I believe the future is private," Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said earlier this year. "This is the next chapter for our services."