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Last week, there have been multiple articles released which claim that Instagram is testing a new feature - hiding likes on users’ posts. The first person to notice this was reverse engineering expert Jane Manchun Wong, who posted a tweet on her Twitter account. In her screenshots, you can see that for the followers, it says only one account’s username - "liked by accountname and others" and then shows the avatars of few other users that liked the post. Then there’s a screenshot from the point of view of the person who posted the picture. The author of the post is the only one that can see the number of likes their post got and the full list of accounts that liked the post.

The website TechCrunch reached out to Instagram and their spokesperson told them that “[the company is] not testing this at the moment but exploring ways to reduce pressure on Instagram is something we’re always thinking about.” In the screenshots made by Wong, there is a short note by Instagram that states “We want your followers to focus on what you share, not how many likes your posts get.”

If this feature was released, it would change the app’s nature completely. At this moment, every user can see the number of likes that anyone’s post got, which leads to some sort of a “like competition”. Many users compare the number of likes their post got to the numbers that their friends get and do not feel validated when their post has a lower number. Some users also delete a post if it does not reach a satisfactory number of likes. This connects to a phenomenon that is on rise now, the “finstas” – accounts that users create that are usually private and only friends and family are allowed to follow them, where they share posts that would not get many likes or do not match the aesthetics of their regular profile.

The screenshot posted by Wong - https://twitter.com/wongmjane.

References:

Constine, J. (2019, April 19). Instagram hides Like counts in leaked design prototype. Retrieved from https://techcrunch.com/

Wong, M. J. [Wongmjane]. (2019, April 18). Instagram is testing hiding like count from audiences, as stated in the app “We want your followers to focus on what you share, not how many likes your posts get” [Tweet]. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/wongmjane/status/1118970853654290432

-Adela