Creeping to Get Harder Now on Instagram

The story is probably the most lively new medium invented on social media in the last five years. It is a sequential procession of text, photos, and  video that gets erased itself after 24 hours. Initially invented by Snapchat, it was later borrowed by Instagram and now Facebook as well. In the age of smartphone, it is one of the most novel form of social media. It has been reported that around 250 million people use the story feature on Instagram on a regular basis.  

Lately, Instagram is borrowing yet another feature from Snapchat. The company is testing a new feature currently on the app that will alert users when someone takes a screenshot of their Instagram story. The change, which has been reported by TechCrunch, has also been spotted by users on Twitter. The social media users involved in the process of testing are also revealing the information about the prospective new feature with the followers.

So, have you also ever taken a sly screenshot of an Instagram story posted by someone? Well, with this new feature by Instagram that is currently being tested, you may now want to curve that sneaky behavior.  The new feature reveals the users who has taken screenshots of their Instagram story.

The company is yet to make any announcement about when this new feature may officially come into play. However, a spokesperson from Instagram told TechCrunch “We are always testing ways to improve the experience on Instagram and make it easier to share any moment with the people who matter to you.”

The stories feature tells the users about who has viewed their story on tapping the ‘’seen by’’ area that is there on the bottom left corner. With the new feature by Instagram, a circle shutter icon will be displayed just next to the name of the person’s account who has taken a screenshot of your content. The story owners can know this only after checking the ‘’seen by’’ list, otherwise they won’t be alerted.

The feature identifying the name of accounts taking screenshots of your posts is not a bad feature, unless and until you learn it the hard way- slyly creeping. It seems that Instagram is taking precautionary steps in order to inform the over-involved followers that their creeping behavior will no longer be a secret. As per some of the users, when they take screenshot of someone’s story, a pop-up appears with the message: “Next time you take a screenshot or screen recording, the person who posted the story will be able to see it.” The users will be notified the names of the account who screenshotted their story in the ‘’seen by’’ list, where the names are flagged with a camera shutter icon.

Some of the users, predictably are already raising complaints about the new feature, which is still in the testing phase as of now. Whether the company will roll it out to everyone still remains to be seen.

It is crucial for the social platforms to ensure the privacy of their users. While sharing your videos and pictures inherently indicates that you are fine with people viewing it, however, you should also be aware about the followers who are saving your content on their camera rolls. The feature doesn’t prohibit the users from taking screenshots, it just alerts them with the knowledge of who might be trying to screen grab their content.