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Instagram to Start Hiding 'Likes' in the US This Week

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Instagram is to begin testing hiding content "likes" in the United States this week. The change will first be rolled out to a limited number of accounts in the U.S., and users of those accounts will still be able to see how many likes they got on their own posts.

The plan was announced at WIRED25 by head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, who also took to Twitter to share the news.
"It's about young people," Mosseri said during the Wired panel. "The idea is to try to 'depressurize' Instagram, make it less of a competition and give people more space to focus on connecting with people that they love, things that inspire them."

"It means we're going to put a 15-year-old kid's interests before a public speaker's interest," he added. "When we look at the world of public content, we're going to put people in that world before organizations and corporations."
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Hiding likes would fundamentally change the way Instagram works, as liking photos and garnering likes is one of the platform's main features.

Heads up! We've been testing making likes private on Instagram in a number of countries this year. We're expanding those tests to include a small portion of people in the US next week. Looking forward to the feedback! - Adam Mosseri (@mosseri) November 9, 2019
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The Facebook-owned, photo-based platform has conducted similar trials in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Ireland, Italy, Japan, and New Zealand. The removal of Instagram likes follows other recent user-focused changes, like the addition of a timer that shows users how long they've spent in the app, and the removal of the Instagram Activities feed.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on Saturday praised Instagram's decision to bring its like-hiding experiments to the U.S., retweeting Mosseri's Friday tweet and adding the comment, "Great step."

Dorsey has previously questioned the wisdom of Twitter's own use of likes. At last year's WIRED25 summit, the Twitter chief said: "Right now we have a big Like button with a heart on it and we're incentivizing people to want it to go up [to get more followers]. Is that the right thing? Versus contributing to the public conversation or a healthy conversation? How do we incentive healthy conversation?"

Twitter has since played down reports that it plans to kill off the like button, but has acknowledged that it continues to look at the function's use and how it fits in with the platform's aim to promote "healthy conversation."

Article Link: Instagram to Start Hiding 'Likes' in the US This Week
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2019/11/11/instagram-hiding-likes-usa-this-week/
I couldn’t care less about seeing someone else’s total likes so this never changed how I used Instagram or Facebook. 🤷🏻‍♂️
 
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While I want to see goodness in this move, I think at the end of the day it’s just a way to hide more information from the user so the algorithm can have even more power over you.

This is, after all, Facebook we’re talking about. Altruism doesn’t exist there.
 
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Reactions: CarpalMac, jtrauscht, artziggy and 8 others
I welcome this news. Cal Newport discusses the issue in his Digital Minimalism, and whistleblower Tristan Harris explained what’s behind the Likes.
 
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that be me said:
What, exactly, does an influencer do? What do they influence?
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While I also think it's a dumb name and don't really understand who actually falls for their marketing.. They do kind of influence some people's buying decisions. Usually girls are promoting certain products: Bang Energy, mens shaving products, womens makeup, etc.. Some of these girls (and probably some guys) also have patreons where people can pay for exclusive content (usually nudity from what I gather). So I guess they do influence some people... I don't really understand why someone would pay for these things.. But they must be making a decent amount of money if they continue to do it.
 
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bbednarz said:
While I also think it's a dumb name and don't really understand who actually falls for their marketing.. They do kind of influence some people's buying decisions. Usually girls are promoting certain products: Bang Energy, mens shaving products, womens makeup, etc.. Some of these girls (and probably some guys) also have patreons where people can pay for exclusive content (usually nudity from what I gather). So I guess they do influence some people... I don't really understand why someone would pay for these things.. But they must be making a decent amount of money if they continue to do it.
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I thought Snap was for the n00dz, Patreon was for legitimate artists and content creators.
 
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H3LL5P4WN said:
There's actually a few people whom I'd support on Patreon if I had the spare funds, like Mobile Reviews Eh, Rob Scallon, and Andrew Wong.
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Oh I'm sure there are legitimate content creators on there for sure. I'm just talking about the girls that are showing off their bits and pieces and guys actually paying for it. A friend of mine showed me a girl who had a $1500/month tier. For that price she would follow you on Instagram and send you a video of her singing happy birthday to you.... naked.
 
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bbednarz said:
Oh I'm sure there are legitimate content creators on there for sure. I'm just talking about the girls that are showing off their bits and pieces and guys actually paying for it. A friend of mine showed me a girl who had a $1500/month tier. For that price she would follow you on Instagram and send you a video of her singing happy birthday to you.... naked.
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Oh, I get ya now. As for the guys paying camgirls, I have a variety of responses, all of which will get me banned for not being "nice."
 
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bbednarz said:
Oh I'm sure there are legitimate content creators on there for sure. I'm just talking about the girls that are showing off their bits and pieces and guys actually paying for it. A friend of mine showed me a girl who had a $1500/month tier. For that price she would follow you on Instagram and send you a video of her singing happy birthday to you.... naked.
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That’s some serious creativity and dedication there lol
 
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I’ve seen some articles stating that the reason for doing this is to “improve the mental health of users.” What kind of weak minded society have we turned into?

I’m in my mid to late 20s and have had an account on pretty much every social media platform since they started. Not once has my mental health been so negatively affected by the amount of likes other people receive or what content they post.

If your life is so dependent on the validation of others, then your parents did not raise you to be a strong, confident, and independent person. Quit social media and get a therapist for your issues if you can’t handle all that it entails.
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agffth said:
I saw a tweet that made good sense. This is about selling ads. Cutting out brands from working directly with users for paid posts and instead getting brands to pay Facebook for the ads.
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Now that makes a whole lot more sense. Shame on instagram for hiding behind the mental health excuse when it’s probably more about advertising.
 
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NashMan2 said:
I thought the main purpose of Instagram was the "Likes" feature. Why would a lot of the people/entities continue to use it? A lot of "influencers" may have to get real jobs.
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Exactly, it does not affect me personally, but this is basically the way people use Instagram. You discover content like food or pet videos based on likes and you may know ahead if you want to watch a video depending on the number of likes.

I do not welcome this move. Some companies and “influencers” make a living out of engagement and “likes”, as much as I find them superfluos, this is going to hinder their work.
 
agffth said:
I saw a tweet that made good sense. This is about selling ads. Cutting out brands from working directly with users for paid posts and instead getting brands to pay Facebook for the ads.
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This is way more plausible. It is Facebook after all, no good intentions here.
 
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