This will annoy a lot of people.
Instagram will test hiding the like count from photos, and view counts from videos, in an effort to get users to pay attention to the content itself and not their associated engagement metrics.
As part of the tests, users will be unable to see the number of likes and views on other people’s posts, but users will still be able to see the number of likes on their own posts.
The Facebook-owned app announced the news on Tuesday at Facebook’s F8 conference this week.
“Later this week, we’re running a test in Canada that removes the total number of likes on photos and video views in Feed, Permalink pages and Profile,” Instagram said.
“We are testing this because we want your followers to focus on the photos and videos you share, not how many likes they get.”
While they’ve no immediate plans to roll this plan out globally, the prospect of it hasn’t been ruled out by Instagram who say they want people to be comfortable expressing themselves without the pressure of gathering likes.
Jane Manchun Wong, a technology blogger, first spotted the feature last month when reverse engineering the app.
According to her findings, the feature on the Instagram app came with the following message: “We want your followers to focus on what you share, not how many likes your posts get.”
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" pic.twitter.com/MN7woHowVN
— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) April 18, 2019
Some of the other announcements from Instagram include:
- A new “nudge” feature will warn users if they’re about to comment something hurtful.
- “Away Mode” encourages users to take a break from Instagram. It will limit notifications.
- “Manage Interactions” will let users decide how certain people can interact with them.
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