Facebook Hiding Likes
Australia to become the first test guinea pig
We recently reported on a number of new changes in the social networking space. Now, Facebook has decided to make a big change to their iconic ‘blue thumbs up’ in the hopes to positively impact mental and social pressures.
Australia became the first country to take part in Facebook’s new feature testing … hiding ‘likes’ and ‘reactions’ count!
This follows Instagram’s footsteps from back in July where ‘Like’ totals on users posts were hidden in seven countries: Australia, Canada, Brazil, New Zealand, Ireland, Italy and Japan. We can only expect that Facebook’s latest test will also expand to these countries too.
Mia Garlick, Facebook Australia’s director of policy, said the change was based on wellbeing research and feedback from mental health professionals, warning that the number of likes can cause negative social pressure.
“We want Facebook to be a place where people can connect and share in ways most valuable to them. To that end, in Australia we are testing making the total number of likes, reactions and video view counts across Facebook private. We want to understand from people whether removing the total counts improves their experience, while also not limiting any positive interactions,” said Mia Garlick, in an emailed statement to Gizmodo Australia.
Why choose Australia?
It‘s not a huge surprise that Australia was the first chosen guinea pig for this social experiment. Firstly, we have a much smaller population than the US, meaning more controlled testing and minimal damage to user retention. Secondly, we are also considered one the leading countries for tech adoption, ranked 10th in Cisco’s 2018 ‘Digital Readiness Index’.
Garlick also mentioned that Australia has very active “tech-savvy” users of Facebook and Instagram.
Effects on Facebook’s business model:
Although Facebook has not yet publicly shared results from Instagram’s Like hiding tests, it appears that the masses are not phased by the change, but rather prefer it.
On the other hand, content creators had mixed opinions about the ‘like hiding’ test, and those being directly affected had more defined and extreme opinions. A recent report by #paid showed that 35% of respondents who had their likes hidden hated / disliked the experience so far, and another 23% of them actually loved it.
Over half of the creators questioned agreed they’ve seen their total of likes decrease. The simplest reason for this drop is that without visibility of a post’s total likes, the action of ‘liking’ posts seems somewhat irrelevant.
Tama Leaver, who researches social media at Curtin University commented on the sentiment of Instagram’s change.
“Apart from a few very angry influencers for a short period of time, the general consensus seems to be it doesn’t make much difference,” Dr Leaver said.
However, while this change might be a step forward for mental health, the lack of quantified validation may cause people to post and engage less on the platform— which in turn, is bad for Facebook’s business model. We can only expect that Facebook will pull back on its trial if it significantly impacts user activity or ad revenue.
How do you feel about Facebook removing post ‘likes’? Do you feel it truly is a conscious step in the right direction for mental health impacts? Or just a PR stunt?
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