Social media has become a very important part of our everyday lives. Some of us have become over-reliant on these sharing platforms, so much so that our day begins and ends with social media, and our lives at times revolves around creating a positive image of ourselves with our followers. This constant addiction to social media and the constant need for validation from strangers can have a lot of negative effects on our mental health. Earlier this year, Instagram began testing out hiding the total like count from the audience, under the pretext of allowing followers to focus on what is shared, rather than how many likes the post has at that point. Now, it seems Facebook is also prototyping hiding the likes count on posts from followers.
As discovered by prolific reverse engineer Ms. Jane Manchun Wong, Facebook could soon widely undertake tests for hiding the like count on posts, simply resorting to "others" instead of mentioning the specific number of likes. Followers can still go and count the number of likes and other reactions by individually adding up the entries in the lists, but that will quickly become a tedious task. The creator of the post still retains the ability to quickly glance through on the number of likes and reactions on the post, as this fuzzing is done only for followers/viewers and not the creator. Hiding the likes count brings attention back to the content, and eases up the subconscious pressure of reacting according to popular opinion.
Ms. Wong insists that this is an experimental feature, which means that it may or may not translate into a future stable release rollout, much like previously leaked features like screen sharing and dark mode. She also insists that she does not work with Facebook or Instagram (she doesn't, really), so directing feedback her way on this feature would be a rather pointless endeavor as she has no means of influencing the decision making process at Facebook.
What are your thoughts on Facebook hiding likes counts from followers? Do you support or oppose this move? Let us know in the comments below!
Source: Jane Manchun Wong
The post Facebook may soon test hiding the like count from posts, like Instagram appeared first on xda-developers.
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