Social media platform X (previously Twitter) will quickly cease exhibiting public “likes” on customers’ profile pages, the corporate has mentioned. The plan was confirmed on Wedndesday by X engineers, after MacRumors contributor Aaron Perris uncovered a flag in X’s iOS app revealing the approaching change.
Perris discovered that turning off the flag utterly removes the “Likes” tab from all consumer profiles. His discovery was shared on X, which was then reposted and subsequently confirmed by X engineers.
“Yeah, we’re making likes non-public,” responded X’s director of engineering Haofei Wang. “Public likes are incentivizing the incorrect habits. For instance, many individuals really feel discouraged from liking content material that is perhaps ‘edgy’ in worry of retaliation from trolls, or to guard their public picture.
“Quickly you can like with out worrying who would possibly see it,” Wang continued. “Additionally a reminder that the extra posts you want, the higher your For you algorithm will turn out to be,” he added.
Yeah, we’re making likes non-public.
Public likes are incentivizing the incorrect habits. For instance, many individuals really feel discouraged from liking content material that is perhaps “edgy” in worry of retaliation from trolls, or to guard their public picture.
Quickly you’ll be capable of like with out… https://t.co/vPGllc4pB0
— Haofei (@wanghaofei) Might 22, 2024
To clear up some confusion amongst customers, X senior software program engineer Enrique Barragan additionally responded with a submit, saying that customers will nonetheless be capable of see who favored their posts, in addition to the like depend for all posts, replies, and so forth. The change entails hiding which posts different individuals favored, which suggests eradicating the Favored tab on public profiles.
X Premium subscribers have been capable of optionally cover the Likes tab on their profile, however the platform is ready to take it away wholesale. It is not clear when the change will likely be rolled out, however as soon as it does, everybody on X, together with proprietor Musk – who has acquired blowback previously for liking controversial posts – will be capable of like no matter they need with out it being made public.
