Telegram rolls out Stories to all

Encrypted messaging app Telegram has officially rolled out Stories feature to all users, as the platform celebrated its 10th birthday. Telegram users have the option to edit Stories after making it live, which is not available on Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook and TikTok. “For the first time in the history of social media, you can update any element of your story at any time – changing its visibility, caption, on-screen text, stickers or anything else – without having to delete and repost it from scratch,” Telegram said. Telegram is now being used by over 800 million people. The Stories feature offers unique dual camera mode, granular privacy settings, flexible duration options and much more. “Stories are displayed in an expandable section at the top of your screen – so you still see the full length of your chat list and folders,” said the company. By default, users will see stories from all their contacts on home page and they can hide stories from specific contacts, sending them to archived chats. “Stories use Telegram’s powerful media editor — allowing you to add text, drawings, stickers or tag your location. For even more context, stories support captions — where you can include a longer text description, tag friends or add links,” said Telegram. When posting a story, you can select from 4 privacy settings: Everyone, My Contacts, Close Friends and Selected Contacts. Stories can last for your choice of 6, 12, 24 or 48 hours. You can also post them to your profile, arranged in a gorgeous grid — where both old contacts and new connections can see your highlight reel for as long as you want. “For more anonymity, Premium users can enable Stealth Mode — erasing their views from any stories they opened in the past 5 minutes, and hiding what they view for the next 25 minutes,” said the company.