Facebook Messenger makes it mandatory to sign up using a Facebook account

Signing up to Facebook’s instant messaging platform, Messenger and Messenger Lite, will now require users to have a Facebook account. The social media giant has quietly pushed out this update for new users. [caption id=“attachment_6455061” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”]  Facebook Messenger.[/caption] As reported by VentureBeat, 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. Until now, Messenger allowed new users to sign up for the service by using only their phone numbers. That has changed now. The company said that users who already have a Messenger account without connecting it to their Facebook account won’t be affected. However, a Messenger user on Reddit posted that after the update, their account was restricted. They signed up to the service using their phone number. Since the update is new, Facebook is probably still working on the handshake of moving the sign up functionality without a Facebook account.