Facebook’s new option of hiding Like counts is rolling out this
week for both Facebook and Instagram. This option has been under development for
years and its early testing began in 2019.
The idea of launching the option to hide likes on posts
stemmed from users’ experience on the platform, which was pressurizing due to
the anxiety and embarrassment of not receiving enough likes on posts. This has
been a problem particularly for younger users who are highly conscious of how
other people perceive them, a lot of times even resulting in them taking down
posts that have a fewer number of likes.
Of course, this like-chasing culture also led to attempts to
gain clout, as well as notoriety, hence contributing to a less authentic
environment on social media.
As a result of this overwhelming experience, some users started wanting a ‘Like-Free’ social networking space, that would allow them to engage with their followers without being pressurized to be ‘popular’.
Even though Facebook could’ve decided to entirely remove the
like counts, this wouldn’t have been that smart of a move, considering how likes
are used as a social media currency, especially for the influencer community,
for the purpose of brand deals and job opportunities.
Instagram head, Adam Mosseri, said that the like count
option “did end up being pretty polarizing.” “Some people really liked it and
some people really didn’t,” he said.
As a result, Facebook decided to offer the option as a
user-controlled setting on both its platforms. Now, content consumers and
content producers on Instagram can turn the option of Like and View counts on
posts on or off. There are two different settings within this option, one with which
users can choose to not see these metrics when scrolling their Feed, and the
other with which they can choose whether to allow Likes to be viewed by others on
their posts.
On Facebook, users can find the option to “Hide number of
reactions” in the Settings and Privacy area, and they can turn the option on or
off for both their own posts, as well as for posts from others in News Feed, Groups
and Pages.
