By Gustavo Buenrostro
Instagram has started removing the ability to see likes from other peoples posts, but it’s not as big of a deal as some people make it out to be.
The social media platform has already began to hide likes in places like Australia, Brazil, Canada, Ireland, Italy, Japan and New Zealand, just to name a few.
Now, people won’t be able to see the number of likes photos get. Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri said at an event called Wired25, that they want to take away this feature in hopes that the well-being of a person is improved.
The ones who really seem to be complaining about the likes being removed are Instagram influencers and those who make money on that platform.
Influencers do make their money by promoting products, and the companies paying these influencers do like to see the traffic that their posts have.
Some influencers are saying that they won’t get paid as much or that the companies won’t be able to see how well a post is doing.
This is not true, because likes will still be able to be seen by the person who posted the photo.
The only thing that influencers will have to do is send a photo of the number of likes their posts get in order to get paid.
Although, many influencers get paid by the post themselves rather than the amount of activity it gets. Most companies look at the follower count of an influencer and pay them according to that.
This change really won’t affect too much of anything. Mosseri said that he is willing to hurt the company short term so it can thrive in the long term, and he believes that not showing the likes to other people will make the younger generation feel less pressure.
However, it’s not actually the likes that give people pressure or anxiety; most people would say it’s the comments.
There is no monitoring of inappropriate comments except for the person who posted it. More than likely, those comments are directed toward that person and the damage is already done.
The internet culture is a wasteland of trolls and negative people. People need to have tough skin if they want to interact with others, but some people aren’t made for that and it is really damaging to their mental health.
American rapper Cardi B, who has 54 million followers on Instagram, shares her opinion on this whole thing and said that the way people are interacting with comments is more damaging then not being able to see other people’s likes.
She said that people say nasty things because they just want to get a reaction from people, not realizing the damage they are doing.
She isn’t wrong. One of the biggest reason people on the internet say the most hurtful, vile and disgraceful things is because they want attention.
And the comments system on Instagram allows trolls to get that, with the opportunity for the comment to be liked, furthering their desire to be dispicable to people.
If Mosseri really wants to help the well being of Instagram users, his focus shouldn’t be on likes but on the comments section.