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After testing it in numerous other regions, including Brazil, Japan, Canada and Australia, Instagram has confirmed it will start hiding ‘likes’ for accounts based in the United States this coming week.
The confirmation comes from Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri during the below interview at WIRED25. In it, he says certain users in the United States will have ‘private likes’ as soon as this week. Based on how Mosseri addresses the crowd, it appears as though the rollout will be random.
WATCH: Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri announces that the platform will start hiding likes for US audiences starting next week. It's the latest step in Instagram’s quest to become the safest place on the internet. https://t.co/BGkMG57rdk #WIRED25 pic.twitter.com/WNTyAPVhaD
— WIRED (@WIRED) November 9, 2019
While elaborating on why Instagram is looking to test this, Mosseri said:
‘It’s about young people. The idea is to try and depressurize Instagram [to] make it less of a competition [and] giving people more space to focus on connecting with people that they love [and] the things that inspire them.’
It very much seems as though this is a work in progress, far from being set in stone, so initial feedback will likely play a major role in whether or not this feature — or mores the lack of a feature — sticks around.