Going from stories to IGTV, Instagram has always worked hard to be the most relevant social media app by testing the boundaries. The newest change might actually make users pause and think for a second. In the latest news, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri announced to Wired25 that Instagram’s next update will be to make like counts private for select users.
The purpose of this update is to remove the instant gratification of likes and views that a user experiences. While the owner of a post will know how many people liked their post, users who don’t own the content will have to work a little harder to discover this number. “The idea is to try to ‘depressurize’ Instagram, make it less of a competition and give people more space to focus on connecting with people they love, things that inspire them,” Mosseri said in his interview with Wired25.
There are mixed reviews of this change coming from all sides. Nicki Minaj has announced that she will boycott the social media platform once this change is made. Influencers and creators who rely on the app are concerned that this could hurt them in the long term. In places where this has been test run, HypeAuditor discovered that like count dropped between 3% and 15% for some users. To this concern, Mosseri stands firm, saying that “we will make decisions that hurt the business if they help people’s well-being and health.”
Kim Kardashian West has said that this change could be beneficial. An Instagram influencer by the name of Stephanie Tyler eventually got to a point of excitement about the change, saying, “it’s going to weed out the people who are using third party services to buy fake likes and followers and force creators to step up their game.” The argument does exist that this change will be good for people in terms of mental health and authenticity.
There has been a test run in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Ireland, Italy, Japan and New Zealand since 2018. Apparently, feedback so far has been positive, but further test runs will be done since it’s such a fundamental change to how Instagram operates. Long term, it is going to be interesting to see what happens to the Instagram platform if they go forth with making this change for everyone. Maybe this change will be good for the mental health of users and foster creative, original content. Or maybe this change will be the last one that Instagram makes before a new social media platform comes along to fill in Instagram’s space. We’ll just have to see when the time comes.