Instagram stories to remove ‘swipe up’ gesture to follow links and use stickers instead

(DPA/AFP via Getty Images)

Instagram is doing away with one of its most famous phrases: swipe up for a link.

The app is doing away with the whole action, swapping it instead for links.

Users are being shown warnings that from the end of the month, “swipe up links will go away”.

“To add a link to your story, use the new link sticker,” it warns them.

Those stickers will function in much the same way, allowing users to add a link to their story and let people follow them.

The phrase has become one of the most commonly used on Instagram stories, where followers are regularly urged to swipe up for links. It is an easy way to allow people to find things elsewhere on the internet, given that Instagram largely doesn’t allow people to post the links themselves, either in stories or in posts.

As well as the change in gesture, the change means that people will be able to reply to stories that have links in them. At the moment, a story can have a swipe-up link, or a reply box, but not both.

Instagram has said that the stickers are intended to reflect the other ways that people use the platform.

For now, the stickers are restricted to people who already have the ability to add links to their stories: people who are either verified or have 10,000 followers or more.

But it has suggested that the new stickers could be rolled out more widely in the future.