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This article was published on April 6, 2017

RIP Facebook ‘Stories’ … and maybe your friends too?


RIP Facebook ‘Stories’ … and maybe your friends too? Image by: Facebook, via Business Insider

Facebook’s attempt to copy Snapchat may have backfired, as its Stories feature is a ghost town a week after rolling out. Now, in what I can only assume is a guilt-trip, Facebook displays faded images of people who aren’t posting to Stories in the bar at the top of the app.

Only one of my friends consistently uses Facebook Stories, and even at its peak post-release only about four friends ever used it at all. But I tend to keep my Friends list small and tidy, so I thought maybe it was just me.

If the reactions across social media are anything to go by, however, it’s a bust for a lot of people.

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Facebook, however, seems to think that whitespace is a huge turn-off (hence the desire to stuff personalized ads everywhere). So now your un-Storied friends’ profile pics form a sad grey conga line at the top of the app.

So despite its admittedly awesome filters, it seems like Facebook Stories is dying, if not dead, on arrival. Then again, maybe this is just happening for those of us with friends still too invested in Snapchat or Instagram to notice.

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