Wish to Hide your Likes on Instagram and Facebook?

The two major social media platforms, Facebook and Instagram, will let its users choose if they wish to conceal the number of ‘likes’ on other’s posts, on their own posts or to view them. They also provide you with the feature of hiding the number of likes on every post you wish.

The plan to implement the hiding option, which was on the agenda since 2019, only got delayed due to the pandemic. This feature will be available in the new Post area in the setting from Wednesday onwards.

Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, said that the response during the testing time was disuniting as people who liked it really enjoyed having a choice to hide the count of likes in the post while people who did not like it seemed to be really disturbed by the new feature.

People who enjoy the likes and really focussed on its counts used it to know and follow certain trends in social media which were thwarted due to the new feature. This response during the testing stage has made them provide its users with an option to keep the number of likes visible. In other words, to hide the count of likes or not is clearly optional.

The comments, views and likes on the platform of Facebook and Instagram have led to the growth of social media influencers. Social media influencers are people who have a large dependable audience who trusts and can be manipulated by the influencer.

Such influencers have tried to monetise the likes and comments for themselves and also for some brands. But the huge growth of social media influences has also led to an increase in hate speech and misinformation, which Facebook and Instagram found hard to limit. Hiding the count of likes would aid in curbing the hate speech and misinformation on both platforms.

The new feature of hiding the number of likes came from the idea of beginning a new Instagram for children. Mosseri believes that beginning a new platform for kids would be more beneficial and transparent than pushing the kids to lie on their age. The parents can easily monitor their kids’ usage of social media rather than being on the blindside.