Facebook now allows users to hide likes on its platform and also on Instagram. This gives users to hide likes on their own posts as well as posts from other users on their feed.
Many users on social media platform stress out after seeing the number of likes on posts of others and comparing them with their own posts. This can help to depressurize the user experience and make it less competitive on the platform.
Instagram was testing on hiding the likes from posts from the last two years since 2019. Finally, the feature has been announced so that users can take benefit from it.
Also read: Facebook to take action on accounts repeatedly sharing misinformation
“Starting today, we’re giving you the option to hide like counts on all posts in your feed. You’ll also have the option to hide like counts on your own posts, so others can’t see how many likes your posts get. This way, if you like, you can focus on the photos and videos being shared, instead of how many likes posts get. ” Instagram’s blog post on Wednesday added.
How to hide likes on Instagram
Now lets see on how you can hide likes on Instagram.
How to hide likes and view counts on other’s Instagram posts
Instagram allows you to hide view counts of likes on posts uploaded by others on your feed. So you can not see the total like counts on your feed.
To make this change you have to first open your Instagram app on your smartphone and follow the below steps.
- First select Settings on the Instagram app.
- Now tap on the Privacy option and then select Posts.
- You will see the first option as Likes and Views. Tap on the toggle button to turn on hiding like counts on your feed.
How to hide like counts on your own posts
Now that we saw how can we hide likes counts on others posts appearing on our feed. Let’s see how can we hide the view and like counts on our own posts so that others can not see them.
You can individually select each posts on your profile timeline and hide like count. Here’s how you can do it
- First, open a photo you want to hide the like counts from.
- Now, select Post settings (the three dots on the top right-hand side of the post).
- Tap on the Hide Like Count option.
This will hide like counts on that post and other users can not see how many likes that particular post has received. You can perform the same steps while uploading new posts on Instagram.
How to hide like counts on Facebook
Lets see how you can hide view and like counts on Facebook.
First login to your Facebook app. Now to hide reactions from other users on Facebook follow the below steps.
- Tap on the Menu option and then Settings and Privacy.
- Now tap on Settings option and scroll down until you can see the News Feed Settings section.
- In Newsfeed settings select Reaction Preferences
- You will see two options i.e. On posts from others and On your Posts.
- Tap on both the options or any options you want to go with.
On Facebook website news feed settings will be shown as news feed preference.
Facebook has chosen to give users to decide on whether to show their likes counts rather than removing the likes feature entirely, which may have given a new direction to the social network. This may be due to the community influencers on the platform.
Influencers use likes as a tool to bargain with brands for collaborations. If likes counts were removed completely this may have been difficult for them to collaborate.
The social network added that they are researching more ways they can bring to improve the mental health of users on the platform by improving the products and making them less competitive.
What do you think of this new feature of hiding likes from Instagram and Facebook, do you feel that this is a good step or is it annoying and not useful.
Do share this blog with others
Until next time,
Chao 🙂