The new experimental trend amongst silicon valley elite tech companies is the idea of removing comments and engagement from posts.
In a leaked design prototype by code hunter Jane Manchun Wong, this new feature will make “your followers to focus on what you share, not how many likes your posts get.”
According to Instagram, only the person who posts a photo will be able to see the number of people who have liked it, a move that has received criticism from users.
So far, Instagram has not fully tested the feature, but through its spokesman, the platform said the new feature would reduce competition among Instagram users because they won’t compare the likes in their posts with the likes received by superstars. In the long run, Instagram believes such a move will encourage users to post pictures with no intentions to rack up more likes.
This new development comes just days after the Independent reported that the British Information Commissioner’s Office had proposed that social platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat develop features that turn off like likes for minors.
The ‘Instagram like’ has supposedly been demoralizing users at times from posting content on the platform. For some users, fewer likes in a photo decrease a person’s psyche, making them feel less useful than influencers.
This new feature would enable users to post photos for self-expression and not as a contest to rake more likes. The good news is that there’s no plan to hide follower counts on people’s profiles.
But Instagram users feel that the new feature would make the platform boring, pointing out that likes have been an indicator of active influencers, particularly celebrities.
We are yet to see if this new feature will take effect because both Facebook and Instagram have been continuously testing new features which never materialize.
