META allows you to have messenger, without having a facebook account. At least here in Europe. This is great, as some families, communities and even workplaces depend on it for instant messaging. This is the case with my new job. They have a messenger group for important messages and shift trades (“can someone take my shift tomorrow”)

That said, it seems like it is making life hard for people who only have messenger and no facebook. People have not been able to find me, even though i have a pretty unique name. The results show “no results” even though i do have an account with this name, and can be found by some. Even when they do find me, by be searching for them and adding them as a friend, I can’t be added to the group chat. This works some times and not others. I can never know if people can actually find me, when they try.

I have tried letting people search me by name, email, and phone number. The username feature does not work. It says it is broken and i should try later. Also all setting are set to be very loose, and there are no request in the message requests, or spam folders.

Any of you have experienced this, and feel like a second grade user, because you don’t have a facebook account besides the messenger account?

PS: i am also in the process of raising a privacy case with the irish data authorities, because META has not deleted my data as requested in August 2024 but that is with an entirely different email to the one i am using now.