MANILA, Philippines — Facebook might soon hide "like" counts, a new feature that would signal a major shift in how posts are ranked as tech companies grapple with their products' impact on the mental health of users.
The tech giant confirmed the potential rollout of this new feature last September 4. Such a change could ease the pressure to win approval with images, videos or comments and, instead, get people to focus on what is in the post.
Facebook had already started tests on hiding "likes" in another popular platform it owns — Instagram.
It works by masking like counts and video view tallies from others while the Instagram account holder is still able to see them. — Mikas Matsuzawa with AFP