Instagram is testing a new feature that hides public like counts by default

We see several new feature updates on Instagram every now and then, including  new story stickers like "Chat" , but now the Facebook-owned social media platform is bringing a drastic change in its app when it comes to the likes count. Instagram is testing a feature that will hide the number of likes on posts by default! Meaning that if this feature rolls out, you won’t be able to see the number of likes on the picture of your favourite celeb or your friend who went on a picture-perfect vacation. (Also Read:  Instagram accounts of 16 million influencers in India have fake followers: Report ) [caption id=“attachment_5032251” align=“alignnone” width=“1024”] Instagram.[/caption]

We’re currently running a test that hides the total number of likes and video views for some people in the following countries:

✅ Australia
✅ Brazil
✅ Canada
✅ Ireland
✅ Italy
✅ Japan
✅ New Zealand pic.twitter.com/2OdzpIUBka

— Instagram (@instagram) July 17, 2019

But why would Instagram want to do that? To answer this, let’s go back a little. So, in April this year, **Instagram announced that they are testing a new feature** that hides the like count on public photo posts on Instagram. As per the company’s statement, “We want your followers to focus on what you share, not how many likes your posts get.” This feature was only being tested in Canada and the likes on the public posts were hidden by default. Now Instagram has announced that they will be expanding their testing to six more countries—Ireland, Italy, Japan, Brazil, Australia, and New Zealand. The bright side to this is that the focus will now be on the quality of content and not on the number of likes a post gets. This is important as most view the number of likes as a metric of success on the platform. With the focus off the ’like’ the platform will give a chance for new creators to stand out as well.  And influencers and other users of the platform can remain content with their own success by checking out the number of likes visible on their own posts, without worrying about what everyone else is up to. Looks like this feature might reach our country soon since we already have so many Instagram users and the company is liking this enough that they have already expanded it to six more countries.