It was reported recently that Instagram might try out hiding public like counts on posts and the Facebook-owned company has now confirmed that it’s indeed considering such a test. Instagram confirmed at the F8 developers’ conference today that a new feature will enter trials this week which will hide users’ public like counts on photos and videos. This test will initially be limited to users in Canada.
What that means is that the likes will not be displayed in the Feed, permalinked pages, and on profiles. Instagram says that the reasoning behind this whole this is to “focus on the photos and videos you share, not how many likes they get.” Only the account holder will be able to see the likes that their content gets, no other viewer will be shown the count.
An earlier report had said that Instagram was developing a feature which would hide public like counts. A spokesperson for the company had said at that time that “We’re not testing this at the moment, but exploring ways to reduce pressure on Instagram is something we’re always thinking about.”
Instagram isn’t saying at this point in time if it has any plans of testing this new feature in other places across the globe. It can prove to be useful, though, as much of the social media sharing these days revolves around racking up those numbers.
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