Photo and video sharing app Instagram is reportedly testing hiding the number of likes in posts as discovered by Prolific app researcher Jane Wong.
In a tweet posted by Jane, who also recently discovered Facebook’s efforts in bringing back the chat feature in its app, showed how Instagram is working on hiding the number of posts’ likes from others and making it visible only to the user.
Jane wrote: “Instagram is testing hiding like count from audiences,
as stated in the app: ‘We want your followers to focus on what you share, not how many likes your posts get'”
Instagram is testing hiding like count from audiences,
as stated in the app: "We want your followers to focus on what you share, not how many likes your posts get" pic.twitter.com/MN7woHowVN
— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) April 18, 2019
As shown in Jane’s post, the ‘like’ details only shows a preview of one of the users who liked the post followed by ‘and others’ instead of indicating the specific number of likes it gained.
An Instagram spokesperson meanwhile told techcrunch.com that the design is an internal prototype that is still not visible to the public.
“We’re not testing this at the moment, but exploring ways to reduce pressure on Instagram is something we’re always thinking about,” the spokesperson said.
(Photo source: cosmo.ph/ Twitter – @wongmjane)
