Instagram

Number of likes Invisible to Australian Instagrammers from now On. From today, Australian Instagram users can no longer see how many likes a post has received.

 

The platform wants to reduce ‘the pressure on the user’.

The Australian version of Instagram removes the number of likes under a post and the number of viewings of a video.

As a user, you no longer know whether your post has been viewed more often than someone else’s.

That should reduce the pressure on users.

‘Focus less on likes’
It is a trial of the platform to make the number of likes invisible.

Instagram says in a statement that it ‘wants users to focus less on the number of likes and more on telling a story’.

Social pressure
Mia Garlick, Facebook’s policy director in Australia, states that Instagram should be a place where people like to express themselves without feeling convicted.

Hiding the number of likes should help with this.

“We hope that these changes take away social pressure so that users can focus more on sharing great stories.”

Other countries
For companies that use Instagram for business purposes, the number of likes remains visible.

The trial starts in Australia, but may later be extended to New Zealand, Japan, Ireland, Italy and Brazil.

At a later moment, the platform will determine whether the number of likes will ever be visible again.

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