Company Context

Instagram is one of Meta’s largest consumer products, serving billions of users across creators, everyday users, and advertisers. Its revenue model depends primarily on advertising, so product changes must balance user well-being, content creation incentives, and long-term engagement.

Problem

Instagram is considering removing the public like counter on Feed posts for some or all users. The hypothesis is that hiding like counts could reduce social pressure and improve user well-being, especially for younger users, but it may also reduce feedback signals that creators and viewers use to judge content quality. Leadership wants to understand whether this change creates net product value before committing to a broader rollout.

You are the product analyst partnering with the Instagram product team. Your job is not just to track engagement changes, but to define how success should be measured across multiple user groups and recommend how Meta should make the launch decision.

Deliverables

1. Define the primary user needs affected by removing public like counts on Instagram.
2. Identify the most important user segments to evaluate separately and explain why.
3. Propose a measurement framework for impact, including primary success metrics, secondary metrics, and guardrails.
4. Explain the key trade-offs Meta should consider when deciding whether to roll out, limit, or reverse the change.
5. Recommend what outcome would justify a full launch, partial launch, or no launch.

Constraints

• The change can be launched on Instagram Feed first; assume Reels and Stories are out of scope for the initial decision.
• Meta leadership wants an initial recommendation within one quarter.
• The team can run experiments globally, but policy and youth safety teams require special attention to teen users.
• You should assume advertiser delivery systems remain unchanged in the short term, so the decision should focus on user and creator product impact rather than ad auction redesign.