“Like everything we build in Signal, stories are end-to-end encrypted. Reinforcing Signal’s commitment to end-to-end encryption, the platform says that the feature also has the same technology in order to ensure users’ privacy. The app shows a list of people who have seen your Stories, but people can turn off view receipts in the app settings. There are also options to restrict who can see your Stories, and you can also share Stories in individual and group conversations. Users can share public Stories that remain available to others for 24 hours. They give you a place to tell the kinds of jokes that work better in a sequential image or video format, and to share what you’re doing without the pressure of a conversation. Stories let you share your life with a select group of people in a way that doesn’t result in a new message notification. Sometimes you just need a chill way to show your crush that you went to a very cool concert, without having to text them.

The company says it decided to put Stories in the app because the feature allows people to communicate with others without texting them. And as you might imagine, Signal Stories works just like Instagram Stories. After a month of beta testing, the encrypted messaging app has made Stories available to all its users on iOS and Android. Back in October, Signal released a beta version of its app with a Stories-like feature.

Encrypted messaging app signal