Instagram says it’s expanding a Canadian pilot removing “like” counts from some users’ feeds to several more countries.

An Instagram spokesman says the social media giant plans to roll out the test in Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Japan, Italy and Ireland this week.

In May, Instagram began testing a new feature in Canada preventing some users from seeing the total number of likes on other people’s photos and videos.

The test hides like counts and video views on Instagram feeds, permalink pages and profiles, but users can still find out the tallies on their own posts.

The spokesman says Instagram is excited by the early results of the Canadian trial, and is looking to learn more from the global community.

He says the move is meant to encourage users to focus on the content being shared on the platform rather than competing for likes.

The Canadian Press

Filed under: canada, instagram, social-media