Instagram swipe-up Stories sticker link

Instagram has replaced its swipe-up feature in Stories with a sticker link

Today’s change on the social media platform appears to be getting negative reviews from users.

As of this morning, Instagram has retired its swipe-up feature in Stories — which allowed verified accounts and accounts with more than 10,000 followers to link to external websites — in favour of a sticker link. Once users click on the link in the Story, they’re prompted to click again on a “Visit Link” button before being redirected to a website.

See the way a post used to look with the swipe-up feature and “See More” button below.

Instagram swipe-up Stories sticker link

Here’s the way a post looks now with the new sticker link feature.

Instagram swipe-up Stories sticker link

Some Instagram users were notified about this forthcoming change in the last week of August. The Verge reported last month that Instagram began testing the sticker link method in June. According to Instagram, “viewers can respond to Stories that have a link sticker, but cannot respond to swipe-up Stories.”

The social media platform also explained that they were retiring the swipe-up in order to “streamline the Stories creation experience” and offer more “creative control,” as users can format the look of stickers and not the swipe-up. Despite the latter claim, however, it is currently not possible to customize the sticker link.

Reviews have not been very positive thus far (at least on Twitter).


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