Instagram introduces new way to cull followers after hiding likes

Instagram banned you seeing how many likes other people have on their posts last year, but there’s an easy way to get around it.

Facebook-owned photo sharing app Instagram recently took away the ability to see how many likes other people’s photos have, but there’s an easy way to get around the block.

While using Instagram on your mobile phone app won’t show the amount of likes for any posts other than your own, viewing the site through your web browser lets you see exactly how many times a post has been double-tapped — without having to count the likes yourself.

Instagram originally started hiding public tallies of likes in Australia last July following a trial in Canada.

At the time the company said it was to reduce bullying on the platform and protect the mental health of its users by making the platform less competitive.

This is also a push, led by some users, rebelling against the perfect pastel colour schemes, artful arrangements and convoluted cafe breakfasts that dominated the platform.

The ubiquity and uniformity of this aesthetic gave us things like Instagram murals and pop-up Instagram museums, where you pay a fee to walk around an otherwise soulless “experience” designed primarily to look good on the photo sharing platform.

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Interactive street artist Kelsey Montague’s winged murals have proven popular on Instagram following endorsements from celebrities like Taylor Swift. Picture: Taylor Swift/Instagram

Some users, particularly younger ones who have been on the app since their early teens, rebel against this “highlight reel” style of posting with thoroughly mundane shots that don’t rely on expensive equipment or intensive editing, as reported by The Atlantic last year.

It later emerged the move wasn’t just aimed at protecting the mental health of users.

An internal theory suggested hiding likes would make people post more, CNBC reported.

That would mean more time spent on the app and more exposure to the ever-increasing amount of ads on the platform.

Bloombergrecently reported Instagram made a $US20 billion ($AU29.7 billion) contribution to Facebook's revenue last year (not bad for an app the company only paid $US715 million ($AU1.6 billion) in cash and stocks for in 2012).

Facebook recently added its logo to Instagram's login page to promote transparency, despite evidence people are turned off when they find out it owns the platform. Picture: Instagram

That’s considerably more than the $US15.1 billion ($AU22.5 billion) YouTube advertising brought in for Google, and unlike YouTube, Facebook doesn’t distribute any of that money back to the people who create content on the app (us).

Less advertising as well as no ability to upload photos or videos on the web browser version of Instagram could explain why you can still see the number of likes a post has gotten on there.

In addition to hiding how many likes other people’s posts get, Instagram is also rolling out new features to help you clean up your feed.

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Instagram has a new feature to help you curate your followers list. Picture: Instagram

The platform is introducing new ways to curate and manage the people you follow by making it easy to see who you interact with the least, as well as sort followers in order of when you followed them.

This can give you an insight into who you first followed when you started on the app and help find accounts that have long since gone inactive.

It also makes it easy to protect your valued ratio — the amount of followers you have compared to the amount of accounts you follow — now the best clout quantifier in a world of hidden likes.

Will you be using this trick to track other people’s posts or are you passed caring about your online reputation? Have your say in the comments below.