While I agree with the sentiment, I don't understand how this helps: all of these platforms prioritize sort order based upon likes/popularity/engagement. You're just putting yourself at an information disadvantage by hiding the metrics while doing nothing to remedy that you're still primarily consuming content based entirely on likes.
I used a similar extension a few years ago which just targeted facebook; and it made a big difference for me in how I experienced the site.
Before I used it I would find myself checking FB sometimes throughout the day after posting something, because some part of me wanted to know how popular it was. The metric being front and center made part of my brain want to optimize for it. After installing the extension I couldn't really know how many people saw what I wrote except vaguely by looking at who commented or something. And as a result I found myself being less self conscious when I posted things - since there was no negative "not many likes" signal I found myself writing more what was actually on my mind. (Rather than what I thought my friends wanted to read).
I hear what you're saying about being at an information disadvantage - but that only matters if "number of likes" is something you're trying to optimize for. I think thats a pretty shallow way to live your life. There's lots of other reasons to speak and listen than how "liked" those words are in the moment. If we rated food the same way we'd only eat junk food. If we raised children optimizing for likes they'd grow up stunted. If we rated academic papers that way we wouldn't even know about the replication crisis.
Ironically when I couldn't see the number of likes on FB, I think what I posted was more interesting as a result anyway. It was certainly more authentic, since while authoring I spent more brain cells thinking about what I wanted to say rather than obsessing about social perception. Every person who's opinion you're worried about when you write makes your writing about 1% worse - which isn't much, but it adds up.
The only real downside was that the extension didn't work on my phone, so I'd end up seeing the numbers of FB likes there anyway. I ended up deleting FB year or two later because it was still too addictive, but I think this extension is a great idea.
It doesn't cost anything to try it out. If you're not sure, run the experiment and see if you have the same experience I did.
Likes themselves (and ranking content using them) aren't the problem — it's their public nature that makes it feel as if our social value is determined by them.
If likes, followers, etc. were private (that is, you could see who liked your post but no one else could), you wouldn't worry about what others would think of you based on those numbers. But since they're public and prominently displayed, we equate those numbers to our social value and end up with undesirable effects like comparing ourselves to others and focusing on what would get approval rather than what's authentic.
My experience is different. Upvotes/downvotes are not public on HN and yet I obsess about them. I've hidden them because of that. It's not about comparing since I can't see anyone else's. I don't want to see the numbers, as it makes me think about the numbers. I rather want to see replies.
Your concerns are valid if you are the type of person/organisation who worries about how many likes they get. I post to Instagram purely for my own amusement, and only use the feed to catch up with family and friends - I really don't care how many likes I get or any post I view gets.
I'm not sure if that's true anymore; I read the other day that e.g. Youtube's algorithm works with engagement, that is, the sum of up- and downvotes. Because downvotes don't mean it's a bad video anymore, it means that people disagree with it - but still would watch it. The algorithm probably also takes views, time watched (until voted), total time watched etc into consideration though. And some magic sauce depending on how advertiser friendly it is, which likely explains why the default suggestions (in anonymous browsing mode) are so weird.
I already adblock the Like elements from the sites I browse. It's less clutter on screen and if you never vote it serves no purpose. A lot of that stuff is 3rd party junk anyway.
It would probably be simpler to just release an adblock filter instead of having another redudant addon, but I'm okay with its purpose.
Instagram has been testing hiding likes for over a year now. They've recently begun testing in the US [1], so there's a good chance they'll hide them for real worldwide. I don't know if Facebook will follow through, but IG will definitely set a precedent.
Like stated on the page it probably helps to stop comparing yourself to others. You call it "information disadvantage", but exactly this is the feature. Social media is distorting our views. I see your point though, this doesn't defeat any biased algorhitms. But I don't think that is the point of this addon either.
Set your platform to chronological sort if you can. If you can't, then this plugin is still good and complements a hypothetical plugin that forces chronological sorts.
It seemed pretty clear that the GP was saying if the platform already shows points/likes, hiding them only from yourself is a disadvantage.
With that said, I believe it can function similar to all those no-procrastination tools; allowing those that want to stop the feedback loop of likes to ween themselves off of it. More of a personal growth tool than a societal solution.
Is Firefox support on your roadmap, DK? I'd use this in a hurry, as someone who meticulously hides social 'like' elements via Ublock Origin for the same reasons as described on your page.
This is a good idea in theory, as it will reduce your fomo and probably jealously. But I bet if you try this for a week, you'll remember why the like/votes metric is important...
The reason voting sites are so popular with people like you and me, is that it's an objective measure of quality from like-minded people.
My link-clicking experience has taught me that if something is old (>8 hours) with a low vote count, it might not be worth the time to look at it. By hiding this metric, you're essentially clicking randomly in the dark...
Sites with likes/voting rank things for you based on what they think is worth looking at. So as long as you're not on HN/reddit's "new" sections, you're not randomly clicking in the dark. You're seeing the "top"/"hottest" things on those platforms right now.
Like/vote counts add bias, induce jealousy, and make it harder for people without reputations to get visibility. For a lot of platforms, I'd guess that inducing jealousy helps drive engagement. Which may be why Facebook is still only "testing" removing like counts - if removing like counts makes people who use Facebook happier, but reduces engagement, then I doubt they'll do it.
At the same time, I agree that there is value in like/vote counts. If something on HN has over 1,000 votes, it's very likely that I'll get value out of reading it.
With voting systems, there are lots of tradeoffs. Most of the time, unfortunately, platforms seem to be optimizing for engagement rather than happiness. I wonder what would happen if they optimized for happiness instead.
> So as long as you're not on HN/reddit's "new" sections, you're not randomly clicking in the dark. You're seeing the "top"/"hottest" things on those platforms right now.
I prefer to see a user-voted system, so I can see the general consensus of the community, rather than the consensus of the company running the website.
If there's no vote/view-count or metrics shown, then how can I be sure other's have even seen it? let alone judged it as a valuable link... to me that's "clicking in the dark"
> Most of the time, unfortunately, platforms seem to be optimizing for engagement rather than happiness.
This right here is the true problem. Facebook/Reddit/Instagram all optimize for engagement and quality content, rather than the consumer's happiness or well-being.
I haven't personally seen a site which balances this very well. If the site is anonymous, then reputation doesn't matter, which could reduce jealously and bias, but these sites are much less personal.
It seems that hiding metrics will probably be better for the consumer, but the main downside is that you're leaving the selection of content to the algorithm on the website, rather than the votes/likes from the community...
I've hidden my score/points on HN via UBlock Origin. I've also hidden the downvote button so I can't downvote anyone (one reason I wish I could run another browser on iOS so I could do the same there)
I want to see reasons responses to my comments not just downvotes which 5 out of 6 times seem like ideological downvotes which is not what downvotes are supposed to before. I'm tempted myself to click the downvote button if I strongly disagree hence the reason I hid them from myself.
Likes are not as bad is dislikes but I hid all the points/scores on those stack overflow too. An answer should be valid based on it's content not the it's score or the point rep of its answerer.
I agree that there's some maybe usefulness to ordering but I'm not entire convinced it outweighs the downsides of popularity where a celeb user gets up votes or a popular opinion gets upvotes effectively drowning out any valid criticism.
I really wish HN would get rid of the Q&A voting system. Bad faith comments can be flagged. And ideally bad flaggers can be disciplined.
It's so hard today to constantly remind oneself how much that crap influences our experience. It's an incessant poisoning of the well. To me the habit I need to check most often is reading comments. If I read comments first I engage less critically with the content, as I've already formed some opinion and seem to know what it's about. If I read comments after I'm generally appalled and confused by the responses and remind myself again to never read comments.
I used to read HN comments first to determine if the article is worth reading. However, if I read the article first, I have the same experience as you where I'm very surprised how other people interpreted the article. Every once in a while there is some enlightenment.
I made an FF add-on for myself that applies css styles to elements matching a given regex. Currently, I only use it to apply visibility: hidden to elements containing text or attribute values matching domains I've blacklisted, including facebook.com, twitter.com and instagram.com. Because I have it enabled, my version of hidelikeseverywhere.com looks like this [1]. Bonus, I won't be able to see this comment on HN because I mention domains in the list :)
I also have the blacklist in uBO, but I was getting sick of accidentally clicking links I didn't realize went to sites I already knew I never wanted to visit.
Edit: I guess this plugin has a different purpose than what I use mine for, it assumes you want to be on the site but not be influenced by the numbers. Because I didn't read TFA, I was thinking it was for "Follow/Like us on Site.com" type links.
I seriously wonder where our society would be today if likes/followers/retweets/pins/hearts were not a thing. I know way too many people who take 10 photos in their best clothes on one day, then spread them across their social media with witty captions over the next 90 days. Why? For who? What do you gain?
HN itself is a good example of a site with up/down voting with no counters (unlike reddit). It would be interesting to see some research on how that affects user behaviour.
These metrics are signals. Interestingly, we already have an extreme information asymmetry between platforms and users. The softened version of these moves is to make the experiences more authentic, the less soft version is to increase the information asymmetry even more.
You as an individual will be a bit sharper, if what you do is not just herd behaviour - but more coming from your true self, you know.
Anyway, the idea is still ok and the site looks nice, congrats on putting it out there.
This won't prevent you from being manipulated by vanity metrics. All of the metrics have already been crunched -- the 20 posts at the top of /r/all are there because they've been validated by everyone else using the site (in the form of likes, activity, and other metrics). Hiding some divs and spans won't change the posts you see at the top of /r/all.
Even if you are strong willed, seeing the number of likes and reshares will endup influencing you in the long term. However, hiding those numbers is putting a band aid on it.
If you are at a point, where you think those numbers are influencing you so badly that you need an extension, try to re-evaluate how how you are spending your time. Maybe you need to work on avoiding those websites in the first place.
If you use StyleBot you can add css to sites to remove particular elements such as like counts. It might be fun to just start zapping away lots of stuff that you don't want to see.
The downside is this hides who reacted to what, and in what way. Usually that's more important to me than the count. If I know several pretty sharp people (dis)like something, and I disagree, I stop and ponder why. It doesn't mean they're necessarily right, but helps me identify potential holes in my thinking.
Gameifying popularity in virtual environments is a cringeworthy trend in the modern world. Nice to see a little push back.
Reminds me of Myspace's "Top 8" that everyone tried to gameify and took way too seriously back in grade school. People that had removed it altogether were usually more pleasant people to interact with in person.
This is a seriously great idea and looks well executed.
Just to add to the chorus of Firefox requesters. I’m sure you have limited dev resources but the spirit of this concept is very aligned with Firefox and less so Chrome. So it might be worth your time even if chrome has greater market share.
Look forward to seeing where you go with this project.
Thanks for the kinds words! Planning on releasing on Firefox in the next several days and I created a quick form if you'd like an email when it's ready: https://forms.gle/aiEqoSVk6XMb5DaL8
It would be good if this only requested permission to read the relevant sites, instead of all sites. I tried using Chrome's options to manually restrict the allowed sites but the extension could not tolerate it and stopped working.
Hey, I built it with the intention of eventually allowing anyone to modify any site they wish (thus the request for all sites), but I think I'll just make that into a separate extension and tighten up the permissions for this one.
agreed that they should open the source. I imagine it's a pretty simple app. a mapping of css selectors with a single line that runs on page load, something like this:
document.querySelectorAll(css_selector).remove()
the hard part would be maintaining the css selectors. This is probably and arms race situation, where websites will obfuscate their elements in such a way where identifying the elements you want is nigh impossible, but that would probably take more engineering than it's worth. What's really interesting is that facebook does not scrub their `data-testid` attributes, so you can basically key on that since they probably test that part of the application extensively, and probably run smoke tests/chaos engineering on their live app so removing them might be impossible in their current implementation.
right now on facebook the appropriate js code would be:
The extension code is minified but AFAICT it's just injecting some CSS sheets, primarily element hiding rules with display:none but also some spacing fixes. E.g. the Facebook one is
It's not clear why the developer chose to inject the stylesheets dynamically and magnify the footprint 10x by including a polyfill library, rather than using the manifest to specify them declaratively, but whatever.
To satisfy your curiosity: The reason I don't inject the stylesheets declaratively is because you can't disable them and I wanted to give people a way to toggle the hiding functionality.
Hiding likes to avoid bias towards "liking" a post is good. Preventing likes is not good. This seems like a good balance - still allows for ppl to unbiasedly like and for the algos to try to send me good stuff.
Resaturating HN text would be a useful feature to support (the worst part of this innovative practice is that when you highlight it to try to make it more readable it becomes even less readable)
If you have an extension like Stylus installed, you can quickly write a new rule. This might also change the saturation of other elements, but I'd be surprised if you wouldn't consider that a benefit.
The desaturation is just a collection of rules like the following:
