“We tested a new experience to hide likes on … posts,” said a spokesman Facebook FB, which owns Instagram, told CNN Business. “We inadvertently added more people to the test today, which was a bug – we’re going to fix this issue and get those people back counted as soon as possible.”
Several users reported seeing the change on their profile on Tuesday, replacing the number of likes with the phrase ‘and others’.
Instagram has been running limited tests of that change for years – in 2019, the company said it was going to remove the likes of a limited number of accounts in Canada. Instagram hasn’t provided a timeline for when it expects the hidden likes to be rolled out widely.
While followers wouldn’t be able to see the total number of likes a post has received, the account owner still could, Instagram said at the time. Users could click to see a full list of the accounts that liked the post, but they wouldn’t be able to see a number indicating how many people liked it.
Instagram has framed the move as a way to ease the pressure to collect likes on the platform. Likes, which appear as hearts on Instagram, are often used as a measure of popularity.
– Kaya Yurieff from CNN Business contributed to this report.