Instagram Will Test Hiding 'Likes' in the US Starting Next Week
https://twitter.com/WIRED/status/1192962986224128005 If you post a picture, and no one sees how many people liked it, does it still exist? Instagram users in the United States are going to find out next week. Months after the company tested hiding "like" counts in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Ireland, Italy, and Brazil, CEO Adam Mosseri announced today at WIRED25 that some US Instagram users can expect their like counts to vanish from public view. The company will begin testing next week, at first rolling out the change to a limited number of accounts.
Instagram isn't the only company that is attempting to remove publicly available engagement metrics from their platform. Facebook (which owns Instagram), YouTube, and Twitter have all experimented with removing engagement metrics from their platforms. As WIRED previously reported, social media researchers have argued that when users tailor their content to whatever garners the most engagement (or outrage), the result is a radicalized environment that makes healthy, happy conversations almost impossible.
https://www.wired.com/story/instagram-hiding-likes-adam-mosseri-tracee-ellis-ross-wired25/