Facebook to Remove “Group Stories” For Good Effective September 26 (Thursday)
Global Social Media giant, Facebook, is killing Facebook Group Stories starting Thursday September 6 2019 – a feature that allows administrators and members who’re part of the social network’s groups to post videos and photos that vanish within 24 hours. This shutdown comes barely 9 months after its public debut in December 2018.
The news, which were first shared by social media commentator Matt Navarra via tweet were confirmed by Facebook on Friday in a statement.
“We’re sunsetting group stories because we want to make sure that features in groups enable people to connect in fun and useful ways, and we’re always looking at ways to improve the overall experience for communities on Facebook,” a Facebook spokesman said in a statement.
Facebook Group stories has been available globally since December but company now plans to start sun-setting the feature on Sept. 26 at 9 a.m. PT (7PM in Nairobi). Existing group stories will be deleted and users won’t be able to post any new ones. A similar feature is available for all Facebook users, which won’t be discontinued, so content that will vanish in a day may still be posted on individual profiles.
The first iteration of group Stories to selected users was launched in November 2017, before expanding the functionality to all groups last December. While group Stories added a new consideration for group engagement, the company also added extra moderation workload for group admins. In October 2018, ahead of the full rollout, Facebook added the ability for admins to mute or block members in order to stop them from contributing Stories content which was unrelated to the group. Group admins were also enabled to delete or report any story photos and videos which they felt were inappropriate.
Social stories are one of the most used features on Facebook’s digital properties, with over 500 million daily users each across Facebook (and Messenger), WhatsApp, and Instagram. However, judging by the fact that the company is shutting down group stories merely nine months after debut suggests it wasn’t widely used. The company declined to say how many people used the group stories feature that it’s discontinuing.
Facebook groups are an online space where users gather and chat about common interests. According to the latest stats, more than 1.4 billion people on Facebook use groups every month.
