Even Signal is jumping on the Stories bandwagon

Like Instagram, Facebook and many others, Signal is jumping on the Stories bandwagon. The privacy-focused messaging app began beta testing an ephemeral stories feature this week. Users can share videos, pictures and text messages with their friends. Stories will disappear after 24 hours.

As with the rest of the platform, Signal stories are end-to-end encrypted. Users can choose who to share them with. In addition to groups and custom friend lists, you can choose to share a story with all of your connections (your contacts and anyone else you've talked to one-on-one). If you choose to post a story in a group, other people can react, reply to it, and share it.

For now, the only people who will see Stories are other beta testers. If you don't want to see stories in Signal, you can turn them off in settings. This will, however, prevent you from posting your own stories.

It remains to be seen whether Stories can help Signal get people to spend more time in the app or even attract new users. Instagram is celebrating one of Snapchat's most used features with its version of Stories. They are now an integral part of the Instagram experience. However, not all platforms that have tried Stories have remained faithful. In 2021, Twitter and LinkedIn both discontinued their Stories features after less than a year.

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