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Where Did My Likes Go Instagram 

Where Did My Likes Go Instagram 

If you were on social media recently, or if you follow technology trends and news, you must have heard about the outrage over the missing Instagram likes. The news is all over the place because of the complaints of many users that can’t see likes or view counts on posts from other people.

Instagram announced in April that they will make this change, but it is only a test. They first started conducting this “no likes” test in Canada, and it has since spread to six other countries. The test results won’t be announced any time soon, but at least Instagram revealed the reasons behind them.

Learn more about that and other Instagram-related news in the following paragraphs.

The Main Reasons Why Instagram Removed Likes

There were several reasons for this drastic change on Instagram, and they were all revealed at the F8 Facebook conference. As you may know, Facebook owns Instagram, and these social media giants are closely related.

Lately, the likes and views have become more important than the content, and when you think about it, this change makes sense. Instead of focusing on those counts, Instagram wants to bring the attention back to the most important thing – the actual content on their platform.

Also, they want to reduce the harassment, which is becoming more common on social media. Many immature users will make fun of people on Instagram strictly due to the lack of likes on their posts. Removing likes is the means of putting an end to bullying and reducing toxic behavior on Instagram.

instagram

How Does It Work?

The countries included in this “no likes” testing are Canada, Brazil, New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, Italy, and Japan. Instagram said they picked these countries because they wanted tech-savvy test subjects and countries that use their platform a lot.

There is no saying when these tests will expand to other countries. Maybe they will never reach the US and the UK – nobody can say for sure.

The users who are picked for testing will get a notification about the change in likes on their main Instagram feed. They seem to be selected at random, so you can’t ask just ask to be included.

Those selected will be able to see the like counts on their posts, and the names of people who liked them. However, others will have no way of knowing these details.

How Does It Work

Who Is the Most Affected by This Change?

Since their inception, Instagram and Facebook had a huge impact on the global population. The social trends spread very fast thanks to these platforms and people on them, popularly known as influencers. These people are probably the most affected by this change because their life and work heavily depend on the view and like counts.

These counts are the measure of their success, and they provide proof of their influence of social media not only to their followers but also to their business partners. They make a living out of marketing certain products or services to their audiences.

With more views and likes they receive more exposure, followed by more business opportunities. Without likes, they will face difficulties proving to others that their content is popular, so this change directly impacts their livelihood.

Instagram acknowledged that, but they want influencers to find other ways of proving their value to their fans and sponsors.

Is This a Good or a Bad Change?

Likes were always an essential part of Instagram and many other social media platforms. They are a way of showing encouragement and approving somebody’s content. This change did not remove likes; it only hid their count from the general public.

Likes, views, and follower numbers are still present and readily available for content creators, and they can share them with their business associates. The number of followers is maybe a more important feature than the like count on individual posts.

People shouldn’t take likes too seriously, and maybe that is what Instagram is trying to achieve. There are no dislikes on Instagram, which would make the likes more valuable. When there is no like-dislike comparison, the likes alone are not that credible.

Although these tests got a lot of backlash at first, they seem to be more accepted as time goes by. Even some influencers said that they enjoy the change, as now they can focus on different things besides amassing likes and views on their photos and videos.

The Direction Where Instagram Is Heading

Instagram knows how big of a deal their platform is, and they are trying to make some positive changes. They want more organic content and posts people can relate to instead of inflated fake views and like counts.

There are many third-party apps on the internet that make artificial traffic influx on social media. They can be used to skyrocket a business page or a personal profile overnight. A profile with mere 100 followers and approximately 20 likes per post can go to 1000 followers and 100 likes per post in no time.

These likes, follows, and views come from bots and not real people. The inflated numbers on some profiles diminish the value of other, genuine Instagram accounts. For these reasons, the new no-like Instagram policy seems like a really good idea.

What Do You Think?

Taking everything mentioned here into account, what are your thoughts on Instagram’s no-like policy? Would you prefer the view and like numbers on Instagram to stay public or do you think hiding them is a better idea? Join the conversation by sharing your thoughts in the comments below.

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Aug 5, 2019

1933 Articles Published

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