Instagram and Facebook Bring New Set of Privacy Tools

All users on Instagram and Facebook now have the option to hide their public like counts, so they can decide what works best for them. Facebook said it has tested hiding like counts to see if it might depressurize people’s experience on Instagram. The feedback from people and experts was that not seeing like counts was beneficial for some and annoying to others, particularly because people use like counts to get a sense of what’s trending or popular.

The company said in a blog post that it is looking for more ways to give people control over their experience. That’s why they have recently announced new tools to allow people to filter offensive content from their DMs and gave people ways to control what they see and share on Facebook’s News Feed, like the Feed Filter Bar, Favorites Feed and Choose Who Can Comment.

Users now have the option to hide like counts on all posts in their feed. They will also have the option to hide like counts on their own posts, so others can’t see how many likes your posts get. This way, if the users like it, they can focus on the photos and videos being shared, instead of how many likes posts get. There's also a possibility to hide like counts on others’ posts by visiting the new Posts section in Settings. This control applies to all the posts in your feed.

Users can also choose to hide like counts before sharing a post. This setting can be turned on or off, even after it goes live. Facebook said that the people want more flexibility, so they came to a conclusion it would be important to give people the option. In the next few weeks, users will see both of these controls come to Facebook.