Facebook and Instagram will give their users the option to hide “Likes” notes

Facebook and Instagram users will choose to hide the number of “options” without resolving the discussion about the detrimental effects of the search for verification on social networks.

Users of both sites in the Facebook group will have the opportunity to disable the display of the number of “likes” under all the content displayed in their feed, thus reacting to letting themselves influence or not. Comments from others. They can keep this celebrity indicator on a case-by-case basis for every image and news they post online.

“There is a consumer side that reads the content and a sharing side. You can control both sides ”, Instagram boss Adam Moseri said briefly during a press conference. Gave “heart” to any content – and can always see who counts manually.

Risks of online harassment

The frantic search for “likes” worries many psychologists, especially for the mental health of adolescents, on a daily basis, often unhindered, by their environment and the beautified or completely artificial vision of those around them. Not to mention the dangers of online harassment.

“Bad things are happening on Instagram, we see them”, Mr. Moseri agreed. “With a billion people [sur l’application], We all have humanity, good human beings, bad and bad (…) It is our responsibility to multiply the good and minimize the bad. »

But the social media company, in the end, did not decide to remove the “like” account completely and simply because the research conducted since 2019 on test groups has not been conclusive in one sense or another, the San Francisco-based company.

“Creators are very divided”, Adam Moseri explained:

“Small creators were generally more concerned because they were trying to determine what their audience would like. (…) Already established influencers were very open to this idea because they did not need to prove their worth.. »

The new option does not change the functionality of the method of selecting which messages appear in custom texts. The computer predicts which content each user will be interested in based on a number of criteria, including the number of “users”, but also their taste, habits, and more.