Facebook built but won’t launch a “Facebook Stories” Snapchat clone

Facebook built its own version of Snapchat Stories called Quick Updates, but will not release it. Though Instagram Stories launched this week, Facebook isn’t going to follow suit.

Quick Updates created a special place to share within the Facebook app but outside of the News Feed. Accessible from a button at the top of the feed, Quick Updates would have let people share 24-hour disappearing photos and videos with overlaid text. These posts wouldn’t appear in the feed or in people’s profiles.

Quick Updates featured its own design style, opposed to Instagram Stories which much more closely copies Snapchat Stories. When asked about cloning Snapchat, Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom even said “They deserve all the credit.”

TechCrunch received screenshots of a test of Quick Updates two weeks ago, but the test quickly disappeared after we published about it. Facebook told me at the time that “Quick Updates” was an experiment shown to some people, and that Facebook would not move forward with it.

But the release of Instagram Stories begged the question of whether Facebook won’t modify the feature or release something similar, perhaps called “Facebook Stories”.

I asked Facebook, and a spokesperson told me “Quick updates was something we were going to test. It’s an idea we’re not pursuing anymore.” When pressed on the issue, the Facebook spokesperson provided this official statement:

“We often conduct small tests of new feature concepts, and this particular experience was an old test feature that was shown to some people.  We don’t have any plans to launch it more broadly.”

So at least hardcore social media users won’t have to post non-stop daily updates to three networks, just two.

That said, on Facebook’s successful earnings call last week, Mark Zuckerberg vowed that “We see a world that is video first, with video at the heart of all of our apps and service.”

Yet Facebook hasn’t significantly updated its video uploader in nearly three years, despite me calling for them to modernize since 2013. You still can’t overlay filters, text, drawings, or stickers on videos. You can’t combine multiple clips into a single video, add soundtracks, create transitions, or use features found in other apps like Snapchat, YouTube, Vine, andeven Instagram.

Facebook did recently acquire MSQRD, an app for applying animated selfie filters similar to Snapchat’s lenses. But there’s been no official integration of MSQRD into Facebook or Instagram Stories, though Instagram says that’s coming.

Facebook’s video sharing tool is embarrassingly archaic and is sorely due for an upgrade. Instagram Stories just makes that even more clear.

Instagram launches “Stories,” a Snapchatty feature for imperfect sharing

People only post the highlights of their life on Instagram, so today the app adds its own version of “Stories” to poach goofy, off-the-cuff, everyday content from Snapchat. It works exactly like Snapchat Stories, allowing you to post 24-hour ephemeral photo and video slideshows that disappear. But because Instagram Stories appear at the top of the old feed, your followers will inevitably see them without you needing to build a new audience in a different app.

Instagram Stories is rolling out globally for iOS and Android over the next few weeks.

You could call it Snapchat for adults, a way for brands to post more without overwhelming people’s feeds, an alternative to Instagram’s Like-driven success theater or a blatant ripoff.

Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom wouldn’t disagree with you. When confronted about Instagram Stories being a clone of Snapchat Stories, he surprisingly admitted “They deserve all the credit,” but insisted “This isn’t about who invented something. This is about a format, and how you take it to a network and put your own spin on it.” Read my full interview with Kevin Systrom here.

The moments in-between

With 500 million monthly active users, 300 million daily actives and now 250 million users on its Direct messaging feature, Instagram is enormous expansion for what Snapchat pioneered.

Facebook wants to own more unique, must-see original sharing that was reportedly down 15 percent year over year as of early 2016. But boosting sharing frequency has been hard for Instagram because people only post their most polished selfies, sunsets and meals.

Systrom admits he hadn’t shared to Instagram at all during the six days before we met because none of the moments seemed special enough. “Instagram is a curated feed, but you only get to see the highlights,” Systrom laments. Instagram’s sweat and blemish-hiding filters encouraged that social norm. And while Instagram recently started sorting its feed, people still worry that posting multiple times in a row will seem like they’re spamming their friends, so they hold back.

Stories creates a place for content that’s not “good enough” for the Instagram feed, or at least is too silly to fit in amongst the art. Because everything disappears, you don’t have to be ashamed of that awkward face or stupid joke forever the way things posted to your real Instagram profile reflect on you forever.

Systrom explains that “It basically solves a problem for all these people who want to take a ton of photos of an event or something in their lives, but want to manage what their profile looks like and not bomb feed, obviously, as that’s one of the no-nos on Instagram.”

Facebook has tried multiple times to copy Snapchat with standalone apps like Poke, Slingshot and Instagram Bolt. No one wanted another app, and they all failed and were pulled from the stores.

But Instagram may have found a breakthrough for solving this problem. Instead of burying a Snapchat competitor in another app people don’t need, it’s put it front and center of one they use all the time. And instead of trying to be special with weird mechanics like Slingshot’s reply-to-reveal content, it’s cloned Snapchat Stories down to the pixel because it’s already proven to work.

How Instagram Stories works (déjà vu)

For a quick guide to how Instagram Stories works, check out our animated instruction manual.

It’s easiest to think of Instagram Stories in terms of what’s the same and what’s different from Snapchat Stories.

The same

• The Stories format laces the last 24 hours of 10-second-max photos and videos you’ve shared into a slideshow you can tap to fast-forward through
• Everything you post disappears after 1 day
• You shoot full-screen in the app or upload things from the last 24 hours of your camera roll (recently added to Snapchat with Memories)
• You adorn your photos with drawings, text, emojis and swipeable color filters
• You can save your individual Story slides before or after posting them
• Your followers voluntarily tap in to pull your Story and view it, instead of it being pushed into a single feed
• People can swipe up to reply to your Stories, which are delivered through Instagram Direct private messages
• You can see who’s viewed your Story
• 

• Different

  • Instagram Stories appear in a row at the top of the main feed instead of on a separate screen like Snapchat, and are sorted by who you interact with most, not purely reverse chronological order like Snapchat
  • Anyone you allow to follow you on Instagram can see your Instagram Stories, though you can also block people, as opposed to building a separate network on Snapchat
  • You don’t have to be following someone to view their Instagram Stories, which can be viewed from their profile as long as they’re public
  • You can swipe right or tap the Stories icon in the top left to open the Stories camera, as opposed to Snapchat defaulting to the camera
  • You can hold the screen to pause a slideshow, or tap the left side to go back a slide, as opposed to Snapchat’s time-limited, constantly progressing Stories
  • You can’t add old content to Instagram Stories unless you re-import or screenshot, while Snapchat lets you share old Memories with a white border and timestamp around them
  • Instagram offers three brush types for drawing: standard, translucent highlighter and color-outlined neon, as opposed to Snapchat’s single brush
  • Instagram offers custom color control for drawing with an easy picker, as well as pre-made palettes like earth-tones or grayscale, while Snapchat custom color control is much more clumsy
  • Instagram currently lacks location filters, native selfie lens filters, stickers, 3D stickers and speed effects, but you can save content from third-party apps like Facebook-owned MSQRD and then share them
  • You can’t see who screenshotted your Instagram Story, while Snapchat warns you
  • You can’t save your whole day’s Story like on Snapchat, but you can post slides from your Story to the permanent Instagram feed
  • Eventually, Instagram Stories could be a goldmine, though Systrom says the company won’t focus on monetization until users love it. “I think that businesses and interest accounts, celebrities, etcetera, especially businesses, will find a tremendous use case,” he tells me. “They post three times and they think to themselves ‘Aww, should we really be posting that fourth photo?’ And this just opens the floodgates on events.”
    Eventually Instagram could sell ads that point users to a brand’s Story, like a clothing label with a Story from their fashion show, a politician from their rally or a brand doing a sponsored content tie-in with a social media star. Instead of directing people to their sluggish profile, they can point them to a dynamic, urgent story.

    No Likes, no judgment

    At their core, the use cases of Instagram Stories and Snapchat Stories are identical: Shoot, decorate and frequently share little clips from your life. Instagram lacks some of Snapchat’s advanced features, but it’s built where many people, especially adults, already have a social graph built.
    It’s that placement of Stories atop the Instagram, a simple design choice, that could make Instagram a hit. People love to vie for attention. If you give them a new window to show off through that’s smack dab at the front of an app their friends use, vanity will kick in and people will fill that space with their face and creations.
  • When Instagram launched six years ago, it was a new network open to experimentation in front of friends. People were trying to learn how to make art from camera phones. But over time, Instagram evolved into a game where everyone seeks to win the most Likes and validation. And so they only share the most exciting, pretty parts of the their life, and everything else is swept under the rug.
    Eventually Instagram became the core permanent profile of the mobile generation, and everything you posted had to be good enough for you to be judged by forever. Teens created fake Instagram profiles called “Finstagrams” only their closest friends could see just so they could post whatever they wanted without grubbing for internet points.
    Now Instagram is offering a different way to share with no Likes, no public comments and a lot less pressure.
    The bright-colored text and sloppy drawing may feel a bit out of place on Instagram at first, which is why Instagram was smart not to simply add the Stories creation tool to the main feed’s default uploader.
  • Some people already loyal to Snapchat might not see the need for Instagram Stories… but the screen real estate will likely be too attractive to pass up. They’ll easily be able to save and reshare their Snaps to Instagram Stories anyways. And anyone who’s dipped their toe into Snapchat and found it fun but couldn’t rebuild a following there may revel in this new playground built inside Instagram.
    “We’re north of 500 million people using the product,” Systrom concludes. “We can either let the system evolve the way it evolves — I think that’s a great consumption business. But we want to make sure to keep the soul of what made us love it at the beginning: Share whatever I want, when I want, with who I want. The daily use case.”

Revenge pornography victims as young as 11, investigation finds

Children as young as 11 are among more than 1,000 alleged victims of revenge porn who reported offences in the first year of the new law coming into effect, it has been revealed.

In April 2015, it became an offence to share private sexual photographs or films without the subject's consent.

The BBC analysed Freedom of Information requests from 31 forces in England and Wales between April and December.

Online safety charities said victims were left "hugely damaged".

Revenge porn refers to the act of a partner or ex-partner purposefully distributing images or videos of a sexual nature without the other person's consent.

Our analysis shows:

• There were 1,160 reported incidents of revenge pornography from April 2015 to December 2015

• Three victims were 11 years old with some 30% of offences involving young people under 19

• The average age of a revenge porn victim was 25
• Around 11% of reported offences resulted in the alleged perpetrator being charged, 7% in a caution and 5% in a community resolution

• Some 61% of reported offences resulted in no action being taken against the alleged perpetrator. Among the main reasons cited by police include a lack of evidence or the victim withdrawing support

• Facebook was used by perpetrators in 68% of cases where social media was mentioned in reports. Then came Instagram (12%) followed by Snapchat (5%)

See the data here

The new law was introduced after campaigners lobbied MPs to make it a criminal offence.

Previously, convictions for this type of offence were sought under existing copyright or harassment laws.

It covers images shared on and offline without the subject's permission and with the intent to cause harm. Physical distribution of images is also covered.

An NSPCC spokesman said: "It is shocking that children as young as 11 are becoming victims of revenge porn - and underlines the urgent need for action by social media sites to improve safety.

"Young people also need to be aware of the serious risks of sending explicit material or photos of themselves."

Laura Higgins, of the Revenge Porn Helpline, said being a victim was a "hugely distressing, damaging and violating experience".

She said: "The effect on victims is often pervasive and long-lasting.

"Whilst they have been the victim of a crime, often individuals internalise feelings of guilt and shame, which can negatively affect an individual's sense of self-worth and self-esteem.

"Victim-blaming attitudes only exacerbate these feelings. Some feel so isolated and overwhelmed they consider suicide."

• Jason Asagba, 21, of Romford, east London, shared intimate pictures of a woman on Facebook and was handed a six-month jail sentence, suspended for 18 months. He first threatened to post the pictures three days after the new laws came into force

• David Jones, 53, of Wallasey in Merseyside, was jailed for 16 weeks for posting sexually explicit photographs of a woman on social media. The woman said she felt "complete terror" when the photos appeared online

• Luke King, of Aspley in Nottingham, shared an explicit photo of a woman using the messaging service WhatsApp. He was jailed for 12 weeks for harassment. The woman, from Derbyshire, told police she was "disgusted" and "really upset"Ms Higgins said the new legislation was flawed because it did not ensure the anonymity of the victim; it did not cover historical cases; and it did not cover images that had been altered via Photoshop.
  The English Regions data unit analysed data from police forces in England and Wales. Some 31 responded - Dorset, Hampshire and Lincolnshire denied the request on cost grounds, while responses from Avon and Somerset, Leicestershire, Bedfordshire, Cleveland, South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, Wiltshire, Dyfed Powys and Gwent Police remain outstanding.
  There were wide variations in the charge rate among police forces. Nobody had so far been charged in Lancashire, Devon and Cornwall or Cumbria, for example. In the West Midlands, 25% of reported offences resulted in a charge, while in Staffordshire, the rate dropped to 3%

Simon Kempton, the lead on cyber crime for the Police Federation of England and Wales, said: "While some officers have had training in the new legislation across the board, there have been some inconsistencies, and there may be some officers who are yet to be given a full awareness and understanding of the new offence."

Mr Kempton said the federation welcomed the new legislation.

"Any sexual offences, including revenge porn, can have a devastating effect on victims. Until the new offence was enacted, police officers were often unable to show a criminal offence had taken place," he said.

How social media giants tackle revenge pornography

• Facebook said the sharing of non-consensual images had absolutely no place on its site. But with more than half the UK population using Facebook, the law of averages meant at times its service would sometimes be abused
• It said it had built up an extensive infrastructure for people to report offences, which were investigated by a team of experts across the globe, 24/7. The team pays special attention to non-consensual sharing, and removes offending photos as quickly as possible
• This year it teamed up with Google to host an EU Child Safety Summit, bringing together experts to discuss how the industry could keep young people safe online. It works with safety experts including Women's Aid, The Revenge Porn Helpline and Spunout to improve the way it tackles sharing of non-consensual images
• Instagram and Snapchat said they encouraged people to follow their community guidelines and if someone was threatening to share something intended to be private it should be reported. They both said reviewers check these reports 24/7 and move to remove any content or shut down accounts, which violate its guidelines

A petition urging a change in the law to give victims the right to anonymity has been launched by the Police and Crime Commissioner for North Yorkshire, Julia Mulligan, and a revenge-porn victim.

Media outlets routinely withhold the names of victims.

The Crown Prosecution Service was contacted for a comment, but has not yet responded.

Snapchat’s new feature lets you swap faces with anyone

Sapchat has got an update that further expands its popular Face Swap feature. While until now the Face Swap feature allowed users to swap their faces in the snaps taken only with the person standing right next to them, from now they can swap their faces with just anyone who's image has been saved in their Camera Roll.

This means users no longer have to awkwardly pose with friends for photos they want to swap faces in, nor need to stand with a laptop or a smartphone in case their friend isn't there. However, this feature is only limited to iOS as of now and it seems like Android users will have to wait for it.

Here's step-by-step guide on how to go about it:

1. Make sure you have the latest version of Snapchat

2. Point the camera at yourself and long-press on your face on the screen.

3. Snapchat will bring up the various face detection photo filters options, once it detects your face

4. Press the on the purple icon right at the bottom of the list.

5. You'll get options of various pictures from your Camera Roll which can be used to swap faces with.

6. Scroll through the thumbnails and tap on way to activate the Face Swap.

7. Press the purple icon to activate the shutter and take the photo, Face Swap intact.

And you're done. So here's another way to be creative with your images, courtesy Snapchat.