Instagram is officially testing hiding like-counts to put focus on content

Oh, collective intelligence is under threat! Kanucks, don't allow instagram to turn on your brain without permission!

hide followers too!

Making it visible to the account holder makes this change useless and doesn't tone down the obsession with likes, plus "influencers" will just post screenshots of their like numbers, and the end user still spends time counting likes.

Remove it entirely. No likes whatsoever

They should test to remove the app from the app stores and see if people will get happier.

Why is there no dislike button on all these platforms?

I'm also tired of people following me with no content but 3k followers.

Just get rid of the bots!

The invention of "likes" has skewed reality and true worth online and dumbed down communications to one click. It fosters anonymity. DPR should remove the "like" function from its website or at least modify it to indicate who is "liking" a post.

Flickr please take note. See a photo of a sandwich or a portrait of a cat in the explore with 4,500,000 views and 15k of favorites. And on the other hand, authentic works of art with 400 views and 15-20 favorites are seriously damaging my photographic mental health.

Game changer for those self-entitled and self-proclaimed influencers.

this will fail. people post on instagram to gent instant gratification, they care little about content, only likes and followers to brag about. influencers and marketing agencies too only care about that in numbers. no likes no instagra.... now, plz give me some likes xD

'Only you will be able to see the total number of likes on your posts.'

Phew, my online ego is saved. I'll be the only one that knows my photos have between 0 and 3 likes (with a mode of 0)!

Oh no, now the whole world knows!

My account is subject to this trial. I like it! I'm all about just sharing images and seeing other people's work without having whether anyone else likes it causing a bias. I have a decent following for my film photography but was becoming disillusioned, this came at the right time for me.

Instagram is not about photography for a long time. Most people sharing only to get likes and to count them. Due to the popularity of the platform many serious photographers and related to photography businesses opened Instagram accounts just because virtually everyone has it or at least had it in the past. That’s being said, many serious photographers and enthusiasts turned their backs at insta because of all the garbage that’s being posted there in zillions daily. Normal (what’s it ?) people these days prefer to have their own websites and use more photography oriented platforms but not Instagram.

I was going to like a lot of these posts, but didn't want anyone to see. ;)

This will essentially destroy the influencer market.

Any of you with over 100k followers will hate it.
Any of you with under 100k followers will love it...

I'd say, hide the likes, show the follower count!

I'm not against this, but it's not an entirely positive change. It works the other way too - you can’t see whose work is not getting exposure, and who is clearly gaming the system.

Instagram has always had an issue with over-promoting tacky crap from hub accounts, and ignoring genuine creative talent from artists. After all, they still need you addicted to build their audience for advertising, and they also want you to buy advertising, so there's two reasons you shouldn't expect a flood of activity with this change. "We want your followers to focus on what you share", I don't think that's necessarily 'you' they're talking to...

I usually don’t ‘like’ an image if it has over 1000 likes, as that ‘like’ won’t mean anything and will end up as a one way transaction, feeding someone else's fame, who will be unlikely to even acknowledge my existence. This would be problematic for people who are paying for these interactions, and this update would make that curation process more difficult.

Really not sure why showing the number of Likes is such a problem. The Likes I give and receive are based on content and/or my relationship with the person posting. But in any event why not let the account holder decide? Make it a switch in the User settings.

At least nobody will know I only get a couple of likes on my posts 😂

If instagram want to fix this, they should promote accounts with less likes, not famous account every single time, like they do. If things were more even, people would pay less attention the the likes count.

It's a step in the right direction, but it barely begins to address a lot of the problems with that platform, and social media in general.

If Instagram really wants the focus to be on content, they should eliminate likes AND followers. People do all kinds of tricks, gimmicks, automation, bots, and everything else just to have a good number.

I'd rather just look at others' good work and present my own for anyone interested.

You picked the wrong "CA" to test such a bold new change.

I strongly suspect that here in the "Golden State", such a test would incite riots.

I've lost count of how many people I've overheard in casual conversation, whining about how many likes their latest post did or didn't get. It's a truly sad state we live in. (No pun intended?)

Seems legit. You still see the likes on your own stuff. Why does anyone need to see likes on anyone else's stuff?

What Instagram should rather do is stop showing only the photos with many likes when you subscribe to hashtags (e.g. #blackandwhite)... Photos with many likes are not necessarily the best ones...
Another possibility would have IA find out which photos you may like, instead of using the number of likes or number of followers...

great idea! i know so many who are competing for likes. This is a big help.

More important is that Instagram find a way to stop the follow/unfollow cycle that many inconsiderate Instagram users engage in.

They follow, you follow back, and then they dump you a day later. They are trying to have a much higher follower count than following count, which is based on ego.

They pay bots to help them do it if they don't do it themselves.

I have about 220 followers, give or take a few. I get a steady increase of about one or two per day. But you wouldn't know it because I actually gain and lose 20-30 per day. It's ridiculous.

I used to follow back people who followed me (unless it was an obvious spam account), but now I don't, because I know they're just going to unfollow me anyway.

It's incredibly rude behavior.

INSTAGRAM: It's simple: Make an algorithm that suspends accounts temporarily if they unfollow too many people.

See? Easy.

Obviously we are going to occasionally unfollow, but it's the exception, not the norm.

Fix it.

Will DPR get rid of Likes on its comments pages?

Wait, how will I measure my self-worth???

Love this idea. Instagram likes and followers are the equivalent to Myspace friends!

The creation and adoption of a 'likes' system across the internet was no accident. Much research went into psychological techniques to maximize "user engagement", which is buzzword for keeping people on a platform as long as possible and as often as possible. In other words, keeping them addicted to the platform. Over the past year there's been several high-profile exposes on the matter. I recommend watching this 60 Minutes segment about it, called "Brain Hacking":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awAMTQZmvPE

The thotpocalypse is coming!

for some reason some of my posts I think they are just hiding the like button ;-)