The swipe-up will be no more. Instagram is planning to retire the feature, which allows people to visit external webpages by swiping up, starting August 30th, according to a notification viewed by The Verge and confirmed by Instagram. Instead of the swipe-up link, Instagram says people will be able to use link stickers, which are exactly as they sound: tappable stickers in stories that take people to external websites.
The company says it’s retiring the swipe up — a feature that’s spawned its own category of GIFs and a phrase that’s now part of the lexicon — to “streamline the stories creation experience” and offer more “creative control,” given that uses can format the look of stickers and not the swipe up.
This update builds on a…
