Signal adds Stories to Android and iOS devices

Signal has announced the launch of stories for Android and iOS now, promising the feature for Desktop will roll out soon.

Stories are a quick way to share moments and experiences. Users can share photos and videos that disappear from their profile, feed, and messages after 24 hours. Signal has announced the launch of stories for Android and iOS now, promising the feature for Desktop will roll out soon.

Stories will allow users to share their life with a select group of people in a way that doesn’t result in a new message notification. They will give users a place to tell the kinds of jokes that work better in a sequential image or video format, and to share what they are doing without the pressure of a conversation.

Stories happen to be one of the most common feature requests that are received from all over the world. People use and want them, so Signal is providing a way to do stories privately without having to wade through a sea of ads.

Also Read: Opinion: The non-negotiable value of first party data in a post-cookie world

Easy to opt-out

Not everyone wants to share stories on Signal or even see other people’s stories. To opt-out of stories, go to Settings –> Stories –> Turn off stories.

The choice to turn off stories is not broadcast to anyone; the story-sharing users won’t know that you have opted out of seeing their updates.

Users can share images, videos, and text updates to stories on Signal. Stories are available in the latest versions of Signal (v6.0) on both iOS and Android, which are rolling out now.

The content will automatically expire 24 hours after you share them, but users can always manually delete them earlier. Stories are end-to-end encrypted. The only people who will be able to see your stories are the people you’ve selected.

It’s essential that users know who has access to any information that they share with their Signal connections, whether in stories or elsewhere in Signal.

To choose who can see your stories, go to Settings –> Stories.

Here’s who’s in your Signal connections:

• Everyone in your phone’s contact list who uses Signal
• Anyone you’ve had a 1:1 conversation with in Signal (even if you haven’t added them as a contact)
• Anyone whose message request you’ve accepted in Signal

Users can choose to manually hide their stories from specific people.

To share stories with smaller subsets of people, a custom story can be created. For example, you might want to send a story to all of your coworkers, or to everyone you know who shares your Korean skincare obsession.

Like read receipts for chats, users also control view receipts for stories and whether they can see who’s viewed the stories you share. View receipts can be turned on or off in the Settings menu.

Users will only receive stories from their Signal connections that have chosen to share it with them.

Users can also send stories to existing group chats. When you share a story with one of your pre-existing group chats, anyone in the group can see the story as well as other members’ comments and reactions to the story. Users will be able to see updates that other members share to the group story whether or not they have interacted with them 1:1 outside of the group.

If you opt out of stories, you won’t see any group stories for groups that you’re a member of and the fellow group members won’t know that you’ve opted out.