Instagram is testing a new privacy feature called a "like button," which lets you hide your like activity from other users, if you want to.
some IG users are now being prompted by a pop-up notification in the event they can hide their likes from whomever they want.

The new option would allow you to hide your like activity for people who are not your followers or limit visibility to only close friends. Or it could be that you opt to hide your like activity for everyone, if you really don't want people to know the stuff that you're into in the app.
That would add another layer of assurance to users, which would help make them feel comfortable engaging with the application while it will be in line with the broader push for greater privacy, which WhatsApp has seen garner more attention lately in Western markets.

X offers similar, with X Premium (formerly Twitter Blue) subscribers now able to hide their checkmark, if they so choose, as well as their likes which, in X's case, can perhaps make users feel more comfortable showing support for different creators without any potential stigma or association as a result.

Owner of X Elon Musk has taken it one notch higher and also offered to pay the legal bills of anyone that's improperly being treated by his employer because of posting or liking something on X.
In Elon's case, that better fits with his free speech approach and would facilitate more "hardcore" conversations in the app, though it could also be applied on Instagram where people might not necessarily want people to know what they are engaging with, for whatever reason.

So if you're stalking someone's profile that you probably shouldn't, or you're liking and commenting on questionable takes that would surely interest whoever is paying your salary, you can just hide all that activity from public view, and you can bet no one's going to find your questionable activity and turn it into your downfall.

Well, unless you comment on a profile or follow them, those actions would expose you all the same. But if your preferred way of engaging is just with some subtle likes here and there, maybe this would make it for you.