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Some people who screenshot Instagram Stories are getting flagged

Some people who screenshot Instagram Stories are getting flagged

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Another feature lifted from Snapchat

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Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Instagram is currently testing a feature that identifies users who take screenshots of public Instagram Stories. Instagram already identifies users that take a screenshot of a photo or video that’s sent as a direct message. This new feature — the latest to be lifted from Snapchat — hasn’t been turned on for all users in order for Instagram to first gauge response.

In a statement to TechCrunch, Instagram acknowledged it was testing the feature, which we’ve been able to confirm on at least one Verge staff account. Some users guilty of screenshotting stories have already received pop-up warnings from the app that states rather ominously, “Next time you take a screenshot or screen recording, the person who posted the story will be able to see it.”

The Stories feature tells you who has watched your story when you tap on the “seen by” area in the bottom left corner. With this new feature, a circle shutter icon will display next to the name of the account that has screen grabbed your content. Story owners otherwise won’t be alerted when someone takes a screenshot — they can only tell after manually checking the “seen by” list.

As seen in the tweets above, some users indicated they had switched from Snapchat to Instagram because they wanted to get away from screenshotting alerts. Instagram is likely testing how people respond to the new notices and may decide to never rollout the feature to all users, or perhaps change its behavior.

There are workarounds to avoid being detected though, as some Twitter users have pointed out — you can set your phone to airplane mode and then screenshot, or you can view the Instagram story via web browser on desktop and safely screenshot from there. But please, take care and don’t be a creeper.