Facebook testing support for cross posting Stories to Instagram

Chance Miller | Mar 9 2020 - 4:47 pm PT

Facebook is testing the ability to cross post Facebook Stories to Instagram, a new report from TechCrunch explains. You’ve long been able to cross post Instagram Stories to Facebook, but now the company is taking things the opposite direction.

The feature, which is in public testing, was first discovered by Jane Manchun Wong, who regularly discovers new social networking features ahead of their release. The feature is accessible to testers via the Story Privacy settings page in the Facebook app, where you’ll find a new “Share Story to Instagram” toggle.

In a statement, Facebook explained the reasoning behind the new feature:

A Facebook spokesperson tells me that the company is now formally testing the cross-posting feature to make it easier to share moments with the who matter to you, since people might have different audiences and followers on Facebook versus Instagram.

As TechCrunch also points out, this would theoretically allow Facebook and Instagram to sync your “already viewed” status of cross-posted stories. This would prevent you from watching the same story from the same person on both platforms.

This feature also comes as Facebook continues to integrate Instagram with the rest of its services. For instance, Facebook is also actively working to unify its Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram messaging applications.

As of right now, it’s not guaranteed that Facebook will fully roll out the ability to cross post Facebook Stories to Instagram Stories. The feature is still in public beta testing, but that could change at any time.