No More Likes
This article is one of many announcing that Instagram has removed visible “like” counts from its platform. It focuses on the ways in which the removal of likes will hopefully benefit the mental health of users and encourage people to post more creative content. If users aren’t worried about how others will perceive their like counts, they won’t stress about this and will consequently have more incentive to post varied, interesting content. These effects are undoubtedly positive, but I believe the article misses another crucial benefit which this change will bring about. To understand this benefit, I’ll analyze the removal of likes in the context of power laws and the rich-get-richer process we studied in class.
The previous system which Instagram (and other social media apps) implemented lead to a small number of posts receiving many likes/views (viral content), while many posts received very little attention, following the concept of the power laws we discussed. This was caused because posts made by creators who already had high numbers of followers or posts which already had lots of likes were more likely to be interacted with, further boosting their influence and repeating the cycle. Essentially, this is a real-life occurrence of the rich-get-richer process. (where the posts/creators are the websites and a user liking/sharing content is similar to them creating a new site with a link to the content, following the conventions given in class) This creates an environment in which the most accessible and popular content is not necessarily the most valuable or useful, but instead is simply comprised of posts which were lucky enough to receive enough traction (or to be posted by people with lots of existing traction) to begin to benefit from the rich-get-richer process.
The removal of likes completely alters the aforementioned system. Without being able to see the number of likes a post has, the rich-get-richer process can’t happen, because people won’t be able to apply the information-based reasoning which leads to its orchestration (i.e. if other people liked it, it must be good). This will create a system in which users must evaluate each post on their value/merit, rather than based on what other people thought of it. Posts will stray from the power law distribution and content will receive a more even spread of interaction, which is better for creators who are generating valuable content and better for users who will get to see content outside the narrow band of virality.
Further, this development could help to mitigate the spread of misinformation or “fake news” (especially if implemented on other platforms). If fake news articles have a hidden like count, they lose a major form of validation which pushes people to believe or like the articles themselves. People will be more careful to analyze articles themselves in the absence of high like counts to sway them. This will prevent information-cascade situations from occurring. Previously a bad actor could create a number of fake accounts to like/share a false post to create scenarios in which future users would simply like/share the post themselves without analyzing it due to the existing social validation. With such counts hidden, this spreading mechanism (the information-cascade) would be mitigated, with people less likely to like such articles and more likely to be distrustful of them. In a time in which fake news is a huge issue, this type of change could be very useful at combating it.
Although likes have traditionally been a major part of Instagram, after considering this change in the context of this course and thinking about the implications that follow, I believe that removing likes is a positive long term choice for Instagram and potentially for other platforms.
Instagram Is Now Hiding Likes in the US: Here’s Everything You Need to Know