After making constant changes since October 2022, Elon Musk seems to have come up with another new change for X, the platform previously known as Twitter. It looks like X is rolling out private likes.
So, what does it mean for you? Usually you could see who had liked other people’s posts. But with the new proposed change, the like on the platform will be hidden by default. Reportedly, a few weeks ago, Haofei Wang, X’s director of engineering, had already hinted about this change.
A game of ‘Hide and Seek’!
Following the new update, X owner Elon Musk reshared a screenshot of it. “It’s important to allow people to like posts without getting attacked for doing so!” Elon Musk explained.
“The upcoming change is meant to protect users’ public image because many people feel ‘discouraged’ to like ‘edgy’ content. The Likes tab on user profiles will be gone,” Wang explained.
“Users will still be able to see who liked their posts and the like count for all posts, but they will not see the people who liked someone else’s post,” X senior software engineer Enrique Barragan, added further, The Verge highlighted.
What’s next?
Musk is expected to have told the platform’s engineers that he wanted to get rid of the tweet action buttons altogether and instead place a stronger emphasis on post views (also called “impressions”). It looks like Musk might have aimed to remove the section that contained the like and repost buttons entirely.
“Soon you’ll be able to like without worrying who might see it,” Wang said last month. The new proposed update is already an option for X’s Premium subscribers.
As reported by The Verge, Musk thinks that “Social media in general is shifting away from like counts, so this makes sense. He just wants to disassociate from Twitter more and more.”
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