Instagram removes likes for Australian users in second global test
From today, Australian Instagram users won’t be able to see how many likes other posts receive, with the social media platform implementing a trial that was first rolled out in Canada in May.
Australia will be the second market in the world to participate in the test to remove the total number of likes on photos and video views in the feed, permalink pages, and profiles, in an effort to make Instagram not “feel like a competition”.
Users will be alerted to the test via this message
Instagram as a medium is driven more by ego and less by content. These changes represent a major shift in the focus and adjusting the focus squarely upon content.
This change will also drive the focus away from like for like and the automatic double tap to create a karma like.
Will be interesting to see if we find out is engagement improves, or even if time on the platform diminishes.
A bold, and positive move from IG that we at the Remarkables and the team of Influencers we work with are supportive of. Self-expression should never be seen primarily through a lens of competition and like counting. We hope this will reduce the amount of ‘loop’ competitions we see falsely inflating like counts and fosters more authentic, engaging content in our feeds. And for brands seeking high engagement through working with influencers, we will absolutely still be able to provide that data working with individual influencer’s insights.
What rot.
Rather than force it on users Instagram would have been better to either make it optional or at least asked users to say whether or not they support the feature. Whenever you change or alter customer experience the first question that comes to ones mind “is the better application or can I find another application that does not do this”!
They should realize this won’t stop cyber bullying as multiple pages can be ( and probably are) made on a single profile and anyone can message you directly?
It also make noting on you and other peoples reach more tedious if not near impossible. (what if I want to find out how many people have seen my brothers posts, well I can’t now.)
Maybe they should tackle the issues below.
– Delete all the bots that are essentially links to porn
– Make instagram capable of uploading clips longer than 15 seconds
– Limit content to people under 18 from anything pertaining to NSFW.
– Expand live stream times
– Add more camera features
– Cater the suggested pages further to lean towards a users preferences.
– Stop spamming fake game ads in the feed. (Not against them having ads but make sure their sponsors are legit and the ads are not misleading.)
– (if its not like this already) allow a person to block someone and the block is tied to all the said users pages on the account and their email, therefore preventing harrassment (or at least make it more tedious and difficult) even if they change their email the Block will then shift to also block the new email address.
Is that the Goal?, I thought it was some kind of test to ensure that it’s not ‘some kind of competition’?
I like your comments, the porn crap, is very tedious, and the adds also, – but nothing is for free.
Err, isn’t that what social media is – the competition, to get ahead, to get known? I find this test quite hard to understand in the ultimate scheme of things.
And why Australia? Surely much more data on how this would be a game changer would be to test the U.S.
Human behaviour (imo) will always try to be one up on the next person, so, the test is a waste of time. For example. I caught a bigger fish,, my garden is better, I won the race, I work harder, I’m smarter and in the political scenarios, I won the vote, I gotta bigger gun, I’m the right skin color…
I hope so much that this sticks. I could not be happier to hear this. As a mum with young kids it terrifies me to think of the pressure kids may be under with this type of approval system that focuses on and encourages us to focus on looking good or perfect and presenting an amazing life and waiting for others to validate it. This is not feeding the souls of our children. We are living through a tech revolution and whilst this is incredible and there are so many amazing things happening we need to keep reflecting on the purpose of our developments and the impact on our society rather than just racing for the next, most advanced outcome. And ultimately what kind of world do we want to live in? China’s trialling of a technological dictatorship is showing us where we could head if we really enjoy being rated.