Instagram is testing a feature that will show users when someone else takes a screenshot of their story. Users included in the test are getting a warning that the next time they take a screenshot of a friend’s story the friend will be able to see it, as shown below:
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. 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. Instagram is likely testing how people respond to the new notices and may decide to never roll out the feature to all users.
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 a web browser on desktop and safely screenshot from there. But seriously, don’t be a feature creeper.
