HEAD OF INSTAGRAM BEHIND REMOVING 'LIKE' SAYS IT WILL REDUCE MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES

  • 03/03/2021

Back in November 2019, Instagram began testing the removal of the public likes counter on its platform. A key part of the Instagram experience, likes are central to how influencers make money and people view their popularity. By January 2020, many users could no longer see the number of likes another person's photo had. It's a massive shift for the company, billed as an attempt to get users to "focus on the photos and videos you share, not how many likes they get." 
The brain behind this thought is the head of Instagram himself - Adam Mosseri .The 38-year-old is an Israeli-American born in New York. Project Daisy is Instagram's project to remove the public-like counter on the platform. For users where it is live, they only see "and others" instead of the exact number of likes an image has. It is already live in several countries and will be global by the end of the year. It's an attempt by the company to deal with the ramifications of image issue many teens have.

The number of likes has defined how popular users are for well over a decade. It's also the key metric for influencers, the more likes the more money and publicity they receive.That has come with several downfalls, including a spike in mental health issues and bullying.

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