Instagram will let some users choose whether they want to see like counts

The long debate over whether or not Instagram will hide likes may finally get an answer: It's up to you.

On Wednesday, Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, tweeted a thread explaining that the platform is "testing a new option that lets you decide the experience that’s best for you – whether that’s choosing not to see like counts on anyone else’s posts, turning them off for your own posts, or keeping the original experience."

Instagram will now allow some users to choose the experience they want by opting to see likes on others' posts and turn off the like counts on their own posts. Mosseri added that while they're testing this on Instagram, they're also considering exploring similar experiences on Facebook.

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This comes just a month after Instagram accidentally hid like counts for a large group of users. Instagram has been experimenting with hiding like counts since 2019, in an attempt to discover if it would lessen the pressure some people feel when it comes to posting on the app. But not everyone found the potential change helpful, including many influencers who use their number of likes for their work. "Some found this helpful and some still wanted to see like counts, in particular to track what’s popular," Mosseri tweeted.

Mosseri told PBS NewsHour in 2019 that the entire goal of experimenting with how likes are displayed on the app is to "depressurize Instagram" in an effort to reduce anxiety and "social comparisons."

"We want your friends to focus on the photos and videos you share, not how many likes they get," Instagram tweeted at the time of that rollout.

It's not clear when, or if, this particular feature will be accessible to all Instagram users, instead of just a select group, but it is very clear that some kind of larger change is on the horizon.

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