- Facebook does not notify you if someone screenshots your story.
- While a Facebook story is not a permanent part of your profile or feed, anyone can take a screenshot and keep it forever.
- Other prominent social media platforms have similar approaches to screenshots of your story.
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Facebook, like most other popular social media services, lets you create short-lived posts called Stories, often a mashup of text, backgrounds, and photos or video. Facebook's intent is to allow you to create posts about moments in time that you don't necessarily want to linger on your profile permanently.
Because they're temporary, you or others who view your story may want to capture part or all of it before it's gone forever. To do that, they'll likely take screenshots. But will Facebook notify you when someone has taken a screenshot of your story?
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Facebook does not notify you about story screenshots
While the story expires and disappears after 24 hours, anyone can take a screenshot on their phone or computer, essentially making a record of it they can keep forever.So be aware that you are not notified if someone captures a screenshot of your story.
This is not surprising. Not only is it technically challenging for Facebook to know if a screenshot is being taken in many situations — such as when Facebook is being run in a browser — it's alsosimilar to the way most other social media platforms deal with stories.
Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn don't notify users if their stories have been screenshotted, for example. (Though Instagram does notify users about screenshots under certain conditions. Only Snapchat notifies an account owner if a story is captured with a screenshot.
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Related coverage fromTech Reference:
How to post a Facebook Story using a computer or mobile device
How to delete a Facebook Story before its day-long timeframe in 4 simple steps
How to add music to your Facebook story using the mobile app in 2 ways
How to save your Instagram stories in 3 different ways
How to hide your Instagram stories from one of your followers or a group of users
How to delete a Snapchat story on your iPhone or Android, before it automatically deletes after 24 hours
Dave Johnson
Freelance Writer
Dave Johnson is a technology journalist who writes about consumer tech and how the industry is transforming the speculative world of science fiction into modern-day real life. Dave grew up in New Jersey before entering the Air Force to operate satellites, teach space operations, and do space launch planning. He then spent eight years as a content lead on the Windows team at Microsoft. As a photographer, Dave has photographed wolves in their natural environment; he's also a scuba instructor and co-host of several podcasts. Dave is the author of more than two dozen books and has contributed to many sites and publications including CNET, Forbes, PC World, How To Geek, and Insider.
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