Privacy in the Age of Social Media: Concealing Like Counts

Facebook has announced that it is giving users the ability to hide public like counts on Instagram and Facebook. Likes will be visible by default, but you can now opt out of seeing them.

Instagram and Facebook Finally Remove Likes

As announced on theFacebook Newsroom , you can now hide likes on Facebook and Instagram.

Whether social networks should hide like counters has long been debated. In fact, both Facebook and Instagram have been testing the feature for years; mounting pressure from mental health experts has no doubt played into it, with claims that the competitive nature of likes has led to increased anxiety.

Image Credit:Facebook

From today on Instagram, you can hide like counts on all posts in your feed. You can also hide like counts on your own posts so that others can’t see the count, regardless of their own feed’s setting.

Alternatively, you can choose to hide likes on your own individual posts. You can do this before or after posting them to your feed.

“This way, you can focus on the photos and videos being shared, instead of how many likes posts get,” says Facebook.

These controls will be coming to Facebook in the next couple of weeks.

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