Facebook has long been adamant on prohibiting their users seeing which of their friends have been checking up on their Facebook profile.
Given the number of dodgy “Who stalks your profile” type apps forever flooding the app marketplace, this is clearly information Facebook users want. After all, there could be secret admirer checking up on your photos.
However, the information isn’t available and the only way you have of knowing if a particular person has seen your posts is if they interact (comment or like) with them.
However, Facebook’s Snapchat-inspired feature – Facebook Stories – changes that. Facebook Stories is a new feature that allows users (on the Facebook App only) to post videos or photos to create their very own story book. Each piece of content a user uploads to their Stories lasts 24 hours, and then it’s gone.
Whatever content a user uploads to their Stories is available to all their friends, unless they use the Direct feature that allows a user to send messages to specific users instead. The Facebook Stories section appears at the top of a user’s newsfeed on the Facebook App.
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However, unlike content posted to the regular Facebook timeline, a Facebook user can indeed see how many users have seen each piece of content they upload to Stories and the identity of each user. The view count appears at the bottom right of each photo or video and when clicked on, shows which users have seen it, and it’s only viewable to the person who uploaded the content.
So if you view the photos or videos on a particular Facebook user’s Stories section, you don’t need to interact with it for the Facebook user to know you’ve seen it.
Of course this is fine between friends who regularly visit and interact with each other’s content anyway. But things could get a little awkward if you’re a regular silent “stalker” of – say – a secret crush.
Basically, just be aware of that potentially embarrassing little feature you may not be already aware of.
However, for the rest of Facebook, normal rules apply. You still can’t see who visits your regular timeline and looks at your photos or other content on there. And if any third party app is telling you otherwise, they’re lying.