You cited user engagement on the platform as a reason for taking that action. Is that any really different than the above conspiracy theory?
However, I think I was pretty clear.
"It was solely to see if we could make people feel less self conscious by decreasing social comparison." - the main goal
"Our hope was to decrease the pressure normal people feel about sharing their lives with their friends and family." - if we achieve the main goal, this ~might~ happen.
"We thought this might improve some long-term metrics" - on the off chance this happens, we ~might~ benefit in the long run.
Is this really different from "I suspect that the recent trend of social media platforms hiding engagement metrics has less to do with fighting 'envy' than simply allowing for more authentic looking proliferation of promoted content" ?
I think so. Seems like a pretty indirect way of driving user engagement.
I don't know what makes you certain you know the answers even though you've looked at none of the data. Do you have some other sources?
Yup, I've found its a typical reaction from Facebook employees on this site to attack commenters and rationalize any time negative critiques are brought up, although the extreme defensiveness is pretty telling