Instagram has officially rolled out the option to hide likes on posts across the platform, giving users more flexibility and control over their experience
The choice is yours: Instagram will now let users hide like counts on posts, after years of deliberation of testing. The social media giant’s new feature is available to all users on both Instagram and Facebook, where people can now choose whether others can see the number of likes on his or her own post to enjoy a more flexible, positive experience. According to the official blog post, the update also comes with the option to hide like counts on others’ posts.
“We tested hiding like counts to see if it might depressurize people’s experience on Instagram,” the platform said. “What we heard from people and experts was that not seeing like counts was beneficial for some, and annoying to others, particularly because people use like counts to get a sense for what’s trending or popular, so we’re giving you the choice.”
With the update, they’re also hoping to allow the users to “focus on the photos and videos being shared, instead of how many likes posts get.” The tool can be found under the new Posts section in the Instagram Settings.
This is not the first time that Instagram launched a feature to offer people more control for a better personalised social media experience. The company has been introducing a series of tools to allow users to control what they see and share on the feed, such as features that help to filter offensive content from DMs, and control who can comment on the posts. Earlier this month, they have also added a feature that lets users put their preferred pronouns on the profile.
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