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Twitter posts about ‘screenshot alert’ in iOS 11 traced to unsupported vlogger claim

Tweets and retweets claiming that Apple plans to notify you when someone screenshots your text messages have been traced to an unsupported claim by a vlogger back in December.

The claim was that iOS 11 would detect when someone took a screenshot in the Messages app and notify the sender that their message had been captured in this way. This is a feature Instagram uses when someone screenshots a photo in a private message before it expires.

Business Insider noted people freaking out about the rumor, and started digging into the source.

We dug into the social media outrage and found the source of the rumour: A vlogger named Jay Way who claimed in December to have told Apple about his idea for screenshot alerts.

There’s no evidence that Apple is actually going to implement Way’s idea.

It’s not unusual on Twitter for an old claim to suddenly take off when a popular Twitter user retweets it.

The idea makes no sense with text messages since they don’t expire. Anyone who wants a permanent record of a text can simply keep the original.

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Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Ben Lovejoy

Ben Lovejoy is a British technology writer and EU Editor for 9to5Mac. He’s known for his op-eds and diary pieces, exploring his experience of Apple products over time, for a more rounded review. He also writes fiction, with two technothriller novels, a couple of SF shorts and a rom-com!


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