End of an era: After a successful pilot in seven countries - the social network will allow you to hide the number of likes you receive on posts • This is what it looks like
Photo: Yinon Ben-Shoshan
Instagram's most dramatic change:
The social network is currently exploring the possibility of hiding the likes counter in posts - one of the characteristics most identified with it, and with social networks in general.
The source of the report is the identification of a blogger and app developer named Alessandro Palozi, who tweeted about the discovery on his Twitter account.
This means that once you have enabled the option in a particular post - users will not be able to see how many likes it has received and this figure will be exposed only to you.
The main reason behind the new move by Facebook is to prevent the various side effects - such as competitiveness, jealousy, failure and sharing only content that gets many likes.
You can hide the like count directly during post creation by going to the "Advanced settings" section pic.twitter.com/SUExGWNaDB
- Alessandro Paluzzi (@ alex193a) January 14, 2021
About two years ago, they confirmed on the social network that they were conducting an experiment to remove the likes counter in seven countries, including Australia, Italy, Ireland, Brazil, Canada and Japan, and said: "We want your followers to focus on what you share, not how much you like your posts."
Instagram has not revealed specific data on the effectiveness of the experiment it conducted, but studies that have dealt with the subject have shown that the move may be beneficial.
Now, it seems that Instagram may release the option to all users around the world.