“For more: just upswip.” There is hardly a sentence that is as closely linked to the Instagram stories as this one.

An external link opens - to a product or an article.

Gustav Theile

Editor in business.

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But the swipe-up will soon be a thing of the past: Instagram plans to remove the function from August 30th.

This was confirmed by the platform belonging to the Facebook group to the US tech magazine The Verge.

A German Instagram spokeswoman initially did not respond to a request.

According to the report, the swipe-up link is to be replaced by a sticker that can be placed in the stories.

Limitations should remain

The step should therefore optimize and streamline how the stories are created. Users should have more “creative control” because the users can change the look of the link stickers in contrast to the previous swipe-up function. Users can also reply to stories with stickers, but not to stories with swipe-up links. Stickers can already be used for various functions today. This can be used to include locations, surveys, music, hashtags or mentions of other users. Instagram often also provides up-to-date stickers, currently one for postal voting for the federal election.

Not all users have access to the swipe-up function: they must either be verified or have at least 10,000 followers.

The same restrictions should also apply to the sticker link function in the future.

The company is still in the process of evaluating whether to give more users access.

Instagram started testing in June and activated the sticker function for some users.

The story function has been on Instagram since 2016. With the introduction, the platform responded to the success of the competitor Snapchats.

Integration in Facebook app

In addition, it was announced on Monday evening that the group is integrating call functions into its main app, Facebook, on a test basis, reports the Bloomberg news agency.

To do this, the company relies on the technology of the messenger app, which has existed as a separate app since 2014.

Facebook sees Messenger more and more as a service and less as a separate app, said Facebook manager Connor Hayes, who is responsible for the Messenger app. Critics see this integration as an attempt to integrate the apps so much that the group can hardly be split up, which is what many are calling for. This week, the FTC, which is responsible for competition issues, again filed a lawsuit against Facebook.