The term “Like” is more than inseparable from Instagram and Facebook: getting the highest number of “Likes” is one of the main goals of the social networks. The number of Likes collected indicates the degree of interaction of the followers, and is also a way to move up in Instagram’s algorithm, for example.
The importance of Likes makes it almost inconceivable not to be able to see their number on posts. While for a year Instagram was experimentally hiding the number of Likes on the posts of very specific creators, in 2021 the platform is changing its strategy.
The option to hide the number of Likes
Last April Instagram announced through its CEO, Adam Mosseri, that it would implement the option to hide the number of likes. Mosseri communicated the news through his Twitter account, hinting that the new function could also be incorporated into Facebook in the near future. The time is now.
The intention is that anyone on both Instagram and Facebook will have the option to hide their likes count publicly, deciding what suits them best.
In tests conducted by Instagram to hide the “Likes” and check their impact, they observed that this hiding benefited some and annoyed others. This is because the Likes count serves as a guide for some people to detect emerging trends, something that is sometimes toxic for younger users, when this count represents competition.
So finally the platform has decided to give the option to choose, adjusting to the needs of each user.
From now on, it is official that Instagram offers the option to hide the “Like” count on all posts in feeds. You can also hide the “Like” count on your own posts, restricting the visibility of the number of Likes your posts get. Adam Mosseri noted that this way, “the user can focus on sharing videos and photos instead of watching how many likes they get”.
How to hide Likes on Instagram
It’s a very simple process. To hide the ‘Likes’ and the number of reproductions in photos and videos of third parties, you have to access the Instagram Settings, going to ‘Privacy’. In the ‘Posts’ section, activate the option “Hide ‘likes’ and play counts”.
If you don’t want to show interactions with your own posts, there are two options. The first is to disable the public ‘likes’ count from the advanced settings before posting a photo or video. The second option allows you to activate or deactivate the function once the publication has been made.
Instagram also allows you to choose whether you no longer want to show likes on any content previously published on your profile, regardless of the date of publication, no matter how old it is.
How can likes be hidden on Facebook?
Users will be able to access the new settings from the “Settings and Privacy” area of Facebook, under News Feed Settings (or News Feed Preferences on desktop). There they will find an option to “Hide number of reactions”, which can be activated both for their own posts and for others’ posts in News Feed, groups and pages.
The feature will be available on public and private profiles, including previously made posts.
Fighting pressure from instagrammers
Instagram’s main goal is to get the community’s approval with the publication of each image. Hence the relevance of being able to visualise the likes count, which are the indicators of the impact achieved with each publication. But this highly visible feature is also a form of pressure that instagrammers suffer.
Hence, Mosseri proposes the new implementation as a way to reduce the pressure on Instagram users when they make a post. Although this pressure does not only occur on this social network, as it is a visual platform, it is more evident.
It should be borne in mind that the images that appear on Instagram represent the user who posts them. And it has been proven that the acceptance generated by the public exposure of these images has both a physical and emotional impact on the author of the images.