After reading an article about stopping the spread of fake news, the solution came up that social media apps and websites should stop showing the number of likes that someone will get on a post. This reminded me of a tweet that I saw on Twitter that said profile visits and likes are no longer going to be visible by people on Instagram.
The comments under this tweet were kind of mixed between this being a good or bad thing. Most people think it will be a good thing because smaller accounts will stop comparing themselves or thinking that they need to reach a certain number of likes, which will cause less problems in their personal lives. A small amount of people did not like the idea because they want to see how their posts are doing. They are getting a lot of backlash and people think the only reason they want to see how many likes they get is for some type of self validation.
Personally I don't really disagree with the idea because it will cause less problems. A lot of people on social media do compare themselves and it cause social media to be a very toxic place for them. But does the number of likes you get on a post really matter?
-Kayla Abdur-Rahim
Restricting the viewing of number of likes can bring less comparisons and help people with their self esteem. Most people will do anything to obtain a good number of likes so they can get more clout. Therefore it could decrease the number of harmful and idiotic posts that become viral.
ReplyDeleteHowever I can see why some people are opposed. Validation is very important to most people so seeing several likes increases their self esteem. Also many influencers collect money from their posts that get thousands or millions of likes; since it interferes with their income they're obviously against it.
I can understand both sides of the argument, however I believe they shouldn't take away seeing the number of likes because it restricts income for some social media influencers or small companies.
Not showing the amount of likes on a post will not really help the problem. Sure, it will stop people from comparing themselves, but it will not help the spread of fake news. The amount of likes on a post doesn’t have anything to do with how inaccurate information spreads. Honestly, I don’t think this will even lessen the problem. The problem will still exist. Showing or not showing likes will do nothing to the problem. Another action should be taken in order to solve this issue.
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