Facebook is graying out profile icons for people who aren’t using its shameless Snapchat rip-off. The social network launched a new “Stories” (seriously couldn’t name it something else?) feature last week, and it doesn’t appear to have caught on yet. But the social media giant has a plan to change that: make people feel bad about not using it.
First reported by the Verge, the new story icons feature a faded image of your friends, instead of only showing bubbles of people who posted a story. You should see these ghost-like portraits on the main Facebook app next to the “Your Story” circle. My own Facebook app does not show any grayed-out figures, so this may be a feature that is undergoing testing (or I need more friends). A number of people on Twitter have reported seeing the new style.
Facebook Stories now come with ghosts of your friends who don’t post facebook stories pic.twitter.com/tlQeoNFXfd
— Alex Kantrowitz (@Kantrowitz) April 4, 2017
If you tap on one of the faded icons you will see a message that says “[friend] hasn’t added to his/her story recently.” That doesn’t mean your friend posted anything previously; Facebook is just trying shame encourage its users to start doing so.
Maybe this is just the continuation of when Facebook started declaring its users dead. Now it’s turning us all into ghosts.
We have reached out to Facebook for comment.
H/T The Verge
