Instagram is finally rolling out a feature that will allow you to like Stories privately. You could already react to Stories with different emojis before, but this feature aims to streamline the process. Likewise, you can send a private like when someone shares a Story from their Instagram account.
Once you receive the feature, you will see a heart icon between the “Send message” field and the “Send” button. Instagram’s “Like” button has always looked like a heart, and that’s what the company went with here too. Also, you can see the names of everyone who liked your Story in the Story’s viewers list.
Instagram head Adam Mosseri explained the new ‘like’ feature in detail and pointed out why they did it. If you like a Story, it will show in the recipient’s viewer sheet instead of their Direct Messages (DMs). Moreover, other people who can view your Story cannot see who liked it.
The Meta-owned platform has been working on this feature for a while now. Mosseri revealed the feature’s existence back in August last year.
“The idea here is to make sure that people can express more support for each other, but also clean up DMs a little bit,” said Mosseri in the video. “Messaging is a key priority for us, and a big piece of that is focusing on DMs between you and the people that you care about.”
Essentially, Instagram still wants you to engage with other people’s stories but also wants to keep your DMs clean. The social media platform also works on several other features, like a chronological order feed that might come out soon.
