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Instagram will start testing a new option that gives users the ability to hide likes received in publications.
In 2019, the company started by forcing this change, applying it to some users who, since then, have this hidden count for accounts other than their own.
However, it will now be possible choose to see the number of likes in the publications of others and hide the number of “likes”. The experience will extend to Facebook which will test a similar strategy on its platform, writes the just.
Initially, the idea was reduce the stress associated with publishing online content, since many people tend to be anxious about the way their posts are received by your followers, and their popularity is measured by the number of likes.
The problem is even more evident in the younger segments, which even delete posts when they do not receive a sufficient number of “likes”.
By hiding this variable from other users and keeping it only a secret from authors of posts, Instagram aimed to ward off the “herd effect” of its platform, which led users to like posts that already had many likes.
However, some people were against the change because they wanted to continue to understand, through the number of likes, what content was part of the trends and what was popular. The argument was mostly used among influencers.
Instagram weighed both arguments and it is from this analysis that this alternative emerges that puts in the users’ hands the decision to hide, or not, the likes.
The new option will only appear in some accounts. For now, the social network has not said how long the test will last or if there are already plans to make the functionality accessible to everyone.
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