Instagram will hide like counts in some posts

Ever feel like Instagram is too much of a popularity contest? A new feature could help alleviate some of that stress.

Instagram is experimenting with a new feature that removes exact like counts from posts, the company announced onstage at Facebook's F8 developer conference today. The feature, which begins testing in Canada beginning this week, removes publicly viewable like counts from individual posts in feed, profiles, and permalinks.

Screenshots of the feature appeared last week when researcher Jane Manchun Wong uncovered it in Instagram's Android app. Instead of a numerical like count, the images showed that a few users "and others" had liked a particular post. Account owners will still be able to view exact like counts in a separate page only they can see. Read more...