Why is Nicki Minaj threatening to stop posting on Instagram?

Instagram is testing a new feature in the United States this week that could be its most controversial yet: hiding the number of “likes” on posts.

The new feature, announced by Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri on Friday, has led to a strong backlash, especially from influencers and celebrities.

The feature has been piloted in seven countries including Australia, Ireland and Canada in recent months. When it was rolled out there, influencers complained that hiding likes would give them less leverage over brand deals and sponsored content.

Now, American celebrities are calling out the app for experimenting with removing likes, with some threatening to stop posting to Instagram. Others joked on Twitter about the proposed changes.

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But some, including Kim Kardashian, have heralded Instagram’s decision as a boon to users’ mental health.

“We’re testing this because we want Instagram to be a place where people feel comfortable expressing themselves. This includes helping people to focus on the photos and videos they share, not how many likes they get,” a spokesperson for Facebook, which owns Instagram, said.

Here’s what influencers and celebrities are saying about the new feature that hides likes on Instagram.

Nicki Minaj threatened to stop posting on Instagram if the feature were to take effect.

Minaj went on to speculate that Instagram was hiding likes to manipulate what posts users saw in their feed, regardless of how much engagement posts were getting.

Minaj apparently referred to the well-documented phenomenon of YouTube view counts fluctuating after videos are posted, which can happen when YouTube determines views come from bots or other fraudulent sources.

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The rapper Juicy J predicted a backlash against the change, tweeting that he expected people to leave Instagram and go “back to real life”.

Cardi B took to Instagram to protest the feature, arguing that removing likes wouldn’t make Instagram any less toxic because “the comments affect more than the likes”.

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The rapper Rico Nasty said the decision to hide likes would “kill Instagram”.

But some people, including Kim Kardashian West, view the decision to hide likes as a good thing.

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“As far as mental health, I mean it’s something that taking the likes away and taking that aspect away from it would be really beneficial for people,” Kardashian West said during The New York Times’ DealBook conference last week.

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Tracee Ellis Ross also voiced support for removing likes, saying the like count had “adverse effects”. “It creates a culture that isn’t helpful for well-being and isn’t fruitful for creative energy,” she said.

Ross made the statement last week during a panel discussion with Mosseri facilitated by Wired.

Some influencers have argued that the number of likes on a post is irrelevant compared with other metrics like follower counts and impressions.

Karen Civil, a social-media strategist, made the case that influencers shouldn’t pay too much attention to how many likes their posts got.

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This article originally appeared on Business Insider.