On Thursday morning Instagram unveiled a major shake-up and it’s geared towards making the social media platform a friendlier, safer community. Only Australian users are participating in the first of its kind rollout that will remove the total number of likes on photos and video views in Feed, Permalink pages and Profile.
This test is to encourage users and their followers to focus on the photos and videos they share, not how many likes they get. Instagram is doing this as they don’t want the platform to feel like a competition – and this change will help people focus less on likes and more on the content they are creating.
What this will mean:
- Individual users will still be able to see their own likes by tapping on their own liker list.
- The test simply means that others will not be able to see how many likes your post has received.
- Likewise, you will not be able to see how many likes others’ posts have received.
- For businesses and creators on Instagram, this will not affect their measurement tools like Insights or Ad Manager, which they can continue to use in the same way to understand their account engagement.
“We want Instagram to be a place where people feel comfortable expressing themselves. We hope this test will remove the pressure of how many likes a post will receive, so you can focus on sharing the things you love. We are now rolling the test out to Australia so we can learn more about how this can benefit people’s experiences on Instagram, and whether this change can help people focus less on likes and more on telling their story,” commented Mia Garlick, Director of Policy, Facebook Australia & NZ Zealand.
Naturally, Instagram’s move to hide likes has divided opinion. Here, the best Twitter reactions to the change-up…
