Nicki Minaj and Cardi B have both made their thoughts known on the plan to remove likes on Instagram.
American rappers Nicki Minaj and Cardi B rarely see eye to eye but on the matter of likes being removed on the photo-sharing site Instagram, they are in agreement.
Cardi B also posted a video of herself discussing the new highly debatable decision by Instagram executives. The ‘Clout’ rapper said she believes Instagram took a nasty turn when the app gave users the ability to like and reply to comments.
While she agrees that something needs to be done to address the features conducive to cyberbullying and the broader issue of how online interaction can affect one’s “self-esteem.”
Cardi says, “I really feel it’s the way that the comments have been changed in these few years. I feel like people been saying the most weirdest sh*t, been starting the craziest arguments… all because of comments because they want to get to the top, they want to get the most reactions,” she continued. “The comments affect more than the likes.”
Nicki Minaj took to Instagram Live to express her discontent with the possibility of the signature feature of the app becoming obsolete. “Do not say something is for self-esteem when it’s for pocketing more money. Do not use those terms,” Minaj said in the viral video.
Nicki is particularly upset that the end game seems to be that all the sponsored posts that many, many users could previously benefit from will now be monopolized by Instagram.
“They don’t want you to go off on the side, forming all sorts of businesses and being able to say ‘I get this amount of likes’ and charging brands. They want you to have to pay them.” Nicki said about Instagram. “Now those companies instead of going to you, they will have to go and pay Instagram so they can have a post that says ‘Sponsored,’ they can have an advertisement, and they’re paying for that now instead of to you, to Instagram.”
Nicki also believes this has been in the pipeline for some time now, and that’s the reason app developers previously changed up the order of posts from a chronological arrangement.
“We hope this test will remove the pressure of how many likes a post will receive, so you can focus on sharing the things you love,” Mia Garlick, Facebook Australia and New Zealand director of policy, said in a statement according to a previous report by The Sauce when the trials begun earlier this year.
Meanwhile, reality TV star Kim Kardashian is all for the removal of the likes on the app as reported by The sauce last week. She was pleased that creators of the photo-sharing site are finally starting to listen to the public as she believed it would be beneficial to people’s mental health if the number of likes on a photograph is taken away even though celebrities and influencers often earn a bulk of their money from the number of followers and interaction they have on a post.
A majority of Instagram users are displeased with the decision to remove “likes” from the social media app.
The testing has already begun in US markets where some users are unable to view how many times others double-tapped their post. As for how this will affect the income for business users, we’ll just have to wait and see.
