Facebook has revealed it's planning to roll out an 'unsend' feature for its Messenger service that previously only Mark Zuckerberg had access to.
The announcement came only hours after it was revealed the Facebook CEO had the ability to delete messages from conversations entirely, unlike everyone else.
Tech news site TechCrunch reported on Friday it had several examples of chat logs with Mr Zuckerberg which were missing his responses, making it appear as if the person was talking to themselves.
The existing delete function in Messenger removes the message from the sender's inbox, but it remains visible for everyone else.
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"We have discussed this feature several times," Facebook said in a statement.
"People using our secret message feature in the encrypted version of Messenger have the ability to set a timer and have their messages automatically deleted. We will now be making a broader delete message feature available. This may take some time.
"And until this feature is ready, we will no longer be deleting any executives' messages. We should have done this sooner - and we're sorry that we did not."
In other words, not even Mr Zuckerberg will be able to delete his messages until everyone else can too.
Facebook said it was a security feature introduced for the company's top executives in the wake of the 2014 Sony hacking scandal, during with top bosses' embarrassing private chats were made public.
"Revealing plans for the unsend button now could serve to dampen the backlash by making Zuckerberg look like a beta tester of the feature, and eventually normalizing unsend as a common behaviour," wrote TechCrunch's Josh Constine.
Facebook has experienced heavy criticism this year over its privacy failings.
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