‘Instagram likes’ count disappear while testing a new feature

Will you use Instagram more if it didn’t show the amount of ‘Instagram likes’ your most recent post received? On Tuesday, users started to find that posts in their stream had no like counts.

The bug inadvertently hidden Instagram likes count from some of its users when checking one of the features. The company had intended to test the feature on a small group of people, but the bug accidentally introduced more people to the test.

However, there was no need to worry. According to company, this extension of a “test” that has been in effect for many users for months. It was completely accidental, as demonstrated by its fast reversal just hours after it went live.

We've been testing a new experience to hide likes on Feed posts. We unintentionally added more people to the test today, which was a bug — we’re fixing this issue and restoring like counts to those people as soon as possible.

— Instagram Comms (@InstagramComms) March 3, 2021

When Facebook-owned Instagram first introduced the test, which eliminates the total number of likes on images and video views from Instagram’s news feed, permalink pages, and profiles, the company said it was doing so to encourage users to “focus on the photos and videos you post, not how many likes they receive” during its F8 2019 conference.

Despite the fact that Instagram claimed that this was just a temporary move, users’ strong reactions  both positive and negative continued to flood in.

This isn’t the first time Instagram has experimented with deleting likes from accounts. In 2019, the function was put to the test.