Tech

Heads Up Australia, This Is Why All Your Instagram Likes Have Disappeared

If you haven't seen the change yet, it's probably because Instagram was also down this morning.

by Sam Langford  18 July 2019
Instagram removes likes

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Great news Australia — Instagram has released a special update just for us, designed to make you love and adore using the app. No, it’s not a chronological timeline, and no, they haven’t stopped the app from going down every couple of days. Instead, Instagram has decided to hide all likes, effective immediately.

So if you’re wondering why every post in your feed seems wildly unpopular right now, that’s why. For a select set of guinea pig countries (Australia, Brazil, Canada, Ireland, Italy, Japan and New Zealand drew the short straws), it’s no longer possible to see how many people have liked a post on Instagram, unless you made the post.

Instead, every post in your feed just looks like this, letting you know it was liked by “[username] and others”.

“We want your friends to focus on the photos and videos you share, not how many likes they get,” is how Instagram explained it, singlehandedly erasing the pressures of popularity, fame and envy in one fell swoop.

I mean, some people like it, I guess?

Mostly, though, people are just fucking furious that Instagram has introduced yet another crappy new feature to improve user experience, without delivering the features users have been crying out for for years. Like putting the timeline back in chronological order.

Instagram, if you’re listening, the message is pretty clear: the people want their chronological feed back. And dark mode. And for Instagram to stop going down every five minutes.