This archive report was first published on 3 September 2019.
Facebook's latest move to boost digital wellbeing has seen the social media giant consider hiding like counts on posts from followers.
According to App researcher Jane Manchun Wong, who discovered the unreleased feature, Facebook is working to hide like counts in a similar way to Instagram, where only the post creator can see the number of likes and reactions.
Wong stated on her blog that the fact Facebook is following suit after Instagram indicates they have confidence that the pros of hiding like counts outweigh the cons.
Facebook has confirmed to the media that it is indeed considering this test but has not gotten underway with it yet.
"By hiding the like/reaction counts from anyone other than the post creator, users might feel less anxious about the perceived popularity of their content," Jane wrote on her blog.
"It takes time to develop, observe, research and release experimental features like this. Experimental features could come and go. But I am certain hiding the public like counts will be beneficial to the digital wellbeing of a large chunk of users," she added.
