Instagram is rolling out a new option called Private Story likes. Using this feature, users can like a story or comment without sending a direct message to the user. Before this, if anyone liked or commented about the story, a message was transmitted to the inbox. Now you can like a story and post a comment without sending a direct message to the user.
“So now, as you go through Stories, between sending a message and that little paper airplane, there will be a heart icon”. Instagram’s head Adam Mosseri said in a video. “And if you tap on it, it will send the author of that story alike, and that like will show up in the viewer sheet, not in your DM thread with them”.
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Notably, Stories will not include like counts, which is a significant departure from the strategy taken by Instagram for users’ feeds. Instagram (now owned by Meta) spent more than two years experimenting with hiding like counts on the main feed before deciding to leave them up by default. However, users can choose to hide them in their posts.
When you check a view sheet about Stories, you can see who left a like on your Stories, but you would not see a public count for likes. “The goal here is to ensure that people can show greater support for one another while also cleaning up DM,” Mosseri explained.
Instagram adds new features on a regular basis, with Mosseri tweeting about the latest additions to the image and video-sharing site. Mosseri had introduced 3D Avatars in the US, Canada, and Mexico prior to the Story Like feature. Mosseri had emphasized the importance of avatars as “a critical building component for the future of human identity in the metaverse” at the time.
