Facebook could soon start hiding the Like counter on the News Feed. This is already being tested on Instagram in seven countries. The objective behind this is that people tend to get discouraged by the small number of ‘likes’ they get for their posts and are dissuaded from going ahead.
The company confirmed it was considering a test that would remove like counts from posts, but did not say when it would start. There are 7 countries which include Brazil and Canada where Instagram has implemented this new feature. Facebook is yet to share its experience with the Instagram experiment.
The idea is to prevent users from destructively comparing themselves to others and possibly feeling inadequate if their posts don’t get as many Likes. It could also stop users from deleting posts they think aren’t getting enough Likes or not sharing in the first place.
In 2016, Facebook offered users the chance to respond to posts using a range of “reactions” as well as the like button, to represent sadness, anger or surprise.
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