Instagram is expanding its hidden likes experiment

Instagram has been thinking to hide the number of likes that are shown beneath the picture that we post on the social media platform. It seems that people take the number of likes way too seriously. So Instagram has been running tests and experiments to hide the number of likes and see people’s reactions.

So far, the test has been run in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Ireland, Italy, Japan, and New Zealand. Now, this test will be experimented in other countries as well. So, if all of a sudden, you can’t see the number of likes, it’s probably because you’re now included in the test. The stats and layout still remains unchanged. You will still be able to see the likes on your own picture, just the likes on pictures and videos in your feed will no longer be visible.

Likes are intended to be a sign of approval from one user to another, not a reactive desire to join a crowd.

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Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, said during an interview at Wired25 that this was intended to make Instagram less of a cutthroat place:

“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.”

“While the feedback from early testing has been positive, this is a fundamental change to Instagram, and so we’re continuing our test to learn more from our global community,” a spokesperson for Facebook (FB), which owns Instagram, said in a statement.

So, when someone likes someone else’s photo in your friend list, you will get the notification of “(name of account) and others liked this post. You can click that to see who has liked the post, but the total number of likes will still remain vanished away.

“We understand that the number of likes is an important metric for many creators, and while this test is in exploratory stages, we are thinking through ways for creators to communicate value to their partners,” a Facebook spokesperson previously told CNN Business.