Elon Musk’s X could hide likes on public posts starting today: report
X, formerly known as Twitter, could hide likes on posts from June 12, US consumer technology news platform The Verge reported. According to the report, likes from the social media platform’s premium subscribers were already hidden, but now the feature is being rolled out widely. Elon Musk, owner of X, also reshared a tweet with a screenshot of the news.
After the feature is implemented, the Like tab in the user profile will disappear. The like count is still active and you can see the number of likes on your post, but the likes on others’ posts will be hidden. You have the option to manually hide likes, but this feature hides them from everyone by default. There is still no clarity as to whether the number of views will be visible.
The new feature comes after Elon Musk reportedly told engineers about it X that he wanted to remove the tweet action buttons and shift the focus to impressions.
Hiding likes is a way to let users protect their public image. Haofei Wang, technical director at X in May, had confirmed the move, saying public likes encourage bad behavior on the platform. He also added, “many people feel discouraged from liking content that could be “edgy” for fear of retaliation from trolls, or to protect their public image.”
Enrique Barragan, senior software engineer, had also taken to
Likes influence the algorithm and the user is shown posts similar to the most liked posts. This feature will result in building a timeline similar to their interests.
First print: June 12, 2024 | 5:03 PM IST