Instagram is launching a small global test where users can choose whether to hide like counts on their own posts or other people’s posts.
This move by the Facebook-owned social media company will give its users the freedom to choose what they prefer – ‘likes’ or ‘no likes’. According to the AFP report obtained by Mashable India, if the option to hide ‘like’ counts becomes a hit among Instagram users, the company could also make the option permanent for the platform. In fact, Facebook will also be experimenting with a similar feature among its users.
“In 2019, we started hiding like counts for a small group of people to understand if it lessens some pressure when posting to Instagram,” a spokeswoman said in a statement. “Some people found this beneficial but some still wanted to see like counts so they could track what’s popular.”
At present, the photo-sharing platform’s experiment includes a small number of users across the globe who are free to decide whether they want to enable the ‘like’ counts option on their posts or not.
The sole purpose of this experiment is to create a healthy space with less competition and comparison among people.
On the other hand, while this thought could be beneficial for people to have fewer mental health issues, influencers, in particular, have cited concerns around the move as they believe it will be difficult for them to keep track of what their users enjoy and in building relationships with brands.
However, Instagram addressed that the platform wants to shift the user’s and creator’s focus from numbers to the creation of organic valuable content.
