It’s finally happening: Instagram will officially test hiding “likes” on posts in the United States beginning next week.
As Wired explains, this will only happen on a limited number of accounts. They also say, “Hiding like counts is just the latest step in Instagram’s quest to become the safest place on the internet, along with algorithms and filters to remove offensive or divisive comments or pictures.”
Instagram has already been testing this for months in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Ireland, Italy, and Brazil.
As expected, this will affect those who use likes and engagement metrics for validation, and business and brand purposes. Business Insider explains that this will primarily affect influencers. “The idea of a like-less Instagram makes many of them nervous. Affected influencers have already noticed their posts are getting fewer likes and less engagement, pushing their posts farther down in Instagram’s algorithmic feed. Some have expressed concerns it’ll affect their reach and ability to grow on the platform.” They also predict that influencers will shift to using different metrics to measure their reach.
Other social media platforms experimenting with removing likes is YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook (which owns Instagram).
CEO Adam Mosseri goes into more detail about this decision. See what he says below.