Using Stories Removes Facebook Anonymity, A Stalker’s Nightmare

Visiting other users on Facebook without that user knowing who viewed their profile is one of the most appealing aspects of the social media giant. This gives people the ability to basically stalk people, viewing photos and following activities anonymously. By activating Stories Mode, however, users lose this anonymity and makes them vulnerable to being identified by the people they are creeping on.

Many would argue that being able to creep on people on Facebook without them knowing is one of the social network’s finer points. As Complex notes, these people are about to find the Stories feature considerably less attractive because of how it basically shows who visited who and when.

This isn’t an entirely new concept since it is standard fare with both Instagram and Snapchat. With the former being a property of Facebook and the latter being a target of Facebook’s cloning regimen, it was perhaps inevitable that Stories would employ the feature. Unfortunately, with the social media site’s status as the single biggest platform in the world along with its age, the feature simply doesn’t work.

As Mashable points out, Facebook is not like either Snapchat or Instagram. It’s basically one big melting pot of people in every walk of life. This is simply not the case with the more youth-centric apps that it is trying to copy, which provide users with a more specific audience.

One of the best aspects of both Snapchat and Instagram is the freedom they provide users to be unfiltered, even brash. Heck, some would argue that these platforms actually encourage such behavior. On Facebook, this isn’t done as easily simply because of the broader range of the audience that users get.

On Facebook, users can be friends with old classmates, employers, family members, and even some forgotten acquaintances. As a result, the Stories feature threatens to create some incredibly awkward situations, akin to meeting a terrible ex-lover on the streets.