Published 17:55 IST, March 3rd 2021
Why did Instagram takes away likes? Here's why the 'Like Button' is not present on the app
Instagram users were shocked on Tuesday when the 'Like Button' disappeared from the app after a new update was introduced. Find out what happened.
- Tech
- 2 min read
Instagram mistakenly hid like counts for a large number of users on Tuesday, March 2, and the internet went into a frenzy. The unwelcomed change freaked many people out as it came with no warning and explanatory blog post about significant changes in the app. Many users on Twitter were understandably concerned while others thought that this was a good thing. Find out why did Instagram take away likes?
Why did Instagram take away likes?
When many Instagram users took to the app on Tuesday to check how many likes their recent post had garnered, they were merely told that their post was liked by a named account "and others". This change had apparently affected everyone in their users' feeds as well. Hence neither did they know how many likes they got nor could they see how many likes other people's Instagram posts got either.
Instagram likes gone
There is nothing to fret over here. According to Instagram this expansion of a "test" that's been in place for many users for months was unintentional. The social media app, took to another popular social media app Twitter to reveal that it was a mistake. Instagram immediately reversed it a few hours after it went live. Instagram revealed in its tweet, “We've been testing a new experience to hide likes on Feed posts. Earlier today, we unintentionally added more people to the test, which was a bug. This issue has now been fixed. People can pull down to refresh their feed and their likes should restore."
Although Instagram made it very clear that this was merely an unintentional gaffe on their part, it did not users' strong reactions from rolling in. The reactions were both positive and negative. While some netizens applauded the move as beneficial for users' mental health, immediately started missing the validation which the likes brought them. Many users also expressed concerns about how this could impact Instagram influencers' ability to make an income through their account.
It is unclear how the bug came to be. According to a report in Mashable.com, the social media company declined to comment further when contacted about the Instagram update. A report on the website reveals that countries such as Canada, Australia, Ireland, Brazil, Italy, Japan, and New Zealand had already been dealing with the loss of likes since Instagram began testing the feature in 2019.
Source: Unsplash
Updated 17:55 IST, March 3rd 2021
