Like, it’s just a publicity thing, right

INSTAGRAM ditching its likes is one of the best publicity stunts in recent history.

You can still like things on “the ’gram”, but, for the moment, you can’t see how many people have liked a particular post.

Before last week, you could check out Kim Kardashian’s Insta feed — which has 144 million followers — and see exactly how many people had liked each of her posts.

Likewise for anyone you follow, plus anyone with a public account. But now, posts don’t reveal how many people have liked them.

You can still see the number of people who have liked your own posts. Why would Instagram do this?

It depends who you ask. If you ask Instagram, it’s to “remove pressure” from its users and help their wellbeing.

No doubt, people comparing the number of likes their Instagram posts attract to other people’s posts is a very real thing.

Some critics claim the social media behemoth has no interest in people’s mental health and the like-counter removal is purely a business decision, that there will be a bottom-line equation driving it. In my opinion, it's a giant publicity stunt. A very good one. Instagram has described the change as a “test”. So if it reverts back to the old way of doing things, it will just say the test didn’t work — that it had listened to its users and the users wanted their likes back. In the meantime, it has gained great mileage in positioning itself as a caring social media platform, and gained enormous amounts of free publicity. People all over the world are talking about Instagram putting likes on their bikes. So why do likes matter? Likes can, sadly, equal social status. And, for the world of social media influencers, likes equal big bucks.

Kim Kardashian’s little sister, Kylie Jenner, reportedly rakes in as much as $1 million for sponsored posts she puts on her Instagram account.

Jenner has 141 million Instagram followers. Despite having marginally fewer followers, Jenner’s Insta posts regularly attracted more likes than Kim’s. Often millions of likes per post.

From now on, the general public won’t have access to this information. Whether you like Instagram’s new like policy or not, I suspect it won’t be here to stay.

I reckon the folk at Instagram will let the current frenzy run its course for maximum publicity, wait for the dust to settle and for a gap in the news cycle and then bring back the like counter.