Facebook planning on hiding likes count for users

In an attempt to protect users from envy and dissuade them from self-censorship, Facebook is considering hiding the Like counter on News Feed posts. This idea is to prevent users from destructively comparing themselves to others as well as feeling inadequate if their posts don’t get many likes. Hiding of likes could also stop users from deleting posts they think are not getting enough likes or shares.

Reverse engineering guru Jane Manchun Wong found code inside Facebook’s Android application that hides the total amount of likes on a post from everyone but the original poster. Other Facebook users can only see a few reaction emoji and a note that it was liked by “[a friend] and others rather than a specific number of other people. However, Facebook has not started running the test yet.

Facebook will not be the first to try this out. Instagram is testing this already in 7 countries including Canada and Brazil. Instagram is already planning to expand it to 6 more countries