In another move away from the old days of Twitter, X has started hiding the posts you’ve liked from other users. The news follows a previous promise from owner Elon Musk that X would start hiding public retweet and like counts until you click through to a post, although this change doesn’t go quite that far.
In a post on @XEng, the official account for X engineering updates, the site announced that while the like count still shows up under your notifications and that you will still be able to personally see which posts you have liked, others will now no longer be able to see that information. Essentially, the “Likes” tab on your profile page is now private, working more like the current Bookmarks system.
The one exception is a post’s author, who will still be able to see which accounts have liked their posts. (So you’ll still know when your mom likes that post about her grandkids.)
The change seems to already be live, with Musk posting “Important change: your likes are now private” to his personal account. As of writing, I can see my own likes page, but nobody else’s. Overall like count is still showing as normal for me on both my home feed and when I click through to posts.
Previously, public likes allowed users to find posts they might be interested in by looking through what their friends have liked. X competitor Threads uses a mix between the old and new system: Individual profiles don’t show a Likes tab, but you can click the amount of likes on a post to see who has liked it.
Hidden likes were previously restricted to paid users, although X director of engineering Haofei Wang explained in May the reasoning behind making them private for everyone. “Public likes are incentivizing the wrong behavior,” Wang said. “For example, many people feel discouraged from liking content that might be edgy in fear of retaliation.” (J.K. Rowling fans are no doubt breathing a sigh of relief.)
Suspiciously, X’s move to hide likes also comes shortly after its full-blown endorsement of porn on the platform.
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So like all the nudes you want, you thirsty little devils, without fear of being called onto the carpet for your proclivities.
