Instagram to Test Hiding Likes in the US This Week

Instagram recently started testing a very interesting new idea: hiding likes. The change will essentially remove like counts from your posts, which is supposed to help Instagram be a healthier and safer place on the internet.

After testing the change in a couple of countries, Instagram CEO announced last Friday that the company will start testing hiding likes in the United States this week. The test will only be available to a small number of users in the US before it is expanded to the whole country. That means the US will join Canada, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Brazil, Australia, and New Zealand in hiding like counts sometime this week.

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Instagram doesn’t completely hide who has liked your posts, though: people simply can’t see exactly how many likes your posts have gotten. You, as the poster of a picture or a video, will still be able to see how many likes your own posts have gotten. But you won’t be able to see the like counts on posts from other people and accounts.

The change is quite important, and it will hopefully promote better mental health. People, especially young users, are often too obsessed with like counts that affect their mental health, and this change could potentially change that going forward.

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  • sdave

    11 November, 2019 - 4:32 am

    <p><span style="color: rgb(66, 66, 66);">As someone that lives in Australia, this is one of the most positive and counter-intuitive moves they’ve made in a long time. It takes away the fear of posting a photo because it mightn’t perform well, something I personally don’t mind, but for teenagers with clicky social circles it makes a huge difference. Consuming media on there is also nicer, because it comes down to whether you, as a person, like the photo rather than the unconscious judgement of photos based off </span><a href="https://singhbazar.com&quot; target="_blank" style="color: rgb(66, 66, 66);">likes</a><span style="color: rgb(66, 66, 66);">.</span></p>

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