On Monday, the company announced that it is rolling out a new Stories feature to all users. The official launch came a few weeks after the company began testing the feature with some users. The Stories feature will be released on the desktop soon.
The Signal Stories feature allows users to create and share images, videos, and texts that disappear after 24 hours. Like everything else in the app, Stories are end-to-end secure.
By navigating to their settings, Signal users can choose who can see their stories. If you choose to share your Stories with everyone in your phone’s contact list who uses Signal, anyone you’ve had a one-on-one conversation with in Signal, or anyone whose message request you’ve accepted, you’ll be able to. You have the option to hide your story from certain people. You can create a custom Story if you want to share your stories with a smaller group of people. You have the option to share stories with other people.
Like with reading receipts for chats, you can decide if you want to send view receipts for stories you look at and who sees them. The view receipts can be turned on or off.
You may be wondering why a messaging app like Signal is adding Stories, but the company says Stories is one of the most common feature requests among users, which is why it decided to add them to its platform.
Stories have emerged to serve these specific functions and others in the broader communications landscape, and many of us have integrated them as one of the ways that we connect with one another. They have a natural place in any messaging app. People use them, people want them, so we’re giving a way to do stories privately. Without having to wade through a sea of ads.
The opt-out setting for the feature is offered by Signal because it is aware that not everyone will see Stories as a good addition to the app. If you don’t want to see or post stories, you can turn them off by going into your settings and choosing the “Turn off stories” option.
The addition of Stories may seem like a big shift for the app, but it is just another way for users to privately communicate. According to Signal, the Stories feature is not designed to help people build a following or amplify content for engagement, but rather to facilitate intimate conversations.
When it comes to Stories, Signal is a little late. The ephemeral feature has been adopted by nearly every popular platform over the years.
