'Important change,' Musk says X has hidden users' likes to avoid 'attacks'
Elon Musk
Elon Musk, owner of Microblogging site X,announced Wednesday (Jun 12) that his social media platform has made users' likes private in order to boost privacy. "Important change: your likes are now private," wrote Musk in an X post. Earlier, the microblogging site clarified that the users will still be able to see posts that they have liked. It’s “important to allow people to like posts without getting attacked for doing so,” X said.
"Like count and other metrics for your own posts will still show up under notifications," the microblogging site added. "You will no longer see who liked someone else’s post," the statement further read. "A post’s author can see who liked its posts."
Why X made likes private?
X believes the new feature will allow users to freely express themselves. In May, X engineer Haofei Wang said, "Many people feel discouraged from liking content that might be ‘edgy’ in fear of retaliation from trolls, or to protect their public image”.
"Public likes are encouraging undesirable behavior," he added.
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Enrique Barragan, senior software engineer at X, also said that after the new update, the users will be able to see the number of posts and replies on their own posts but likes of users will not be visible on other posts.
Users not amused
Replying to Elon Musk's post, users expressed their frustration with the update, with some saying it may even negatively impact their brand.
"Pointless update. You could’ve made it optional. It’s essential for community members to look through our likes as they’re relevant to our brand," one user replied.
"How will this adjustment affect the way businesses and influencers track engagement and assess the popularity of their content?"commented another user.
"Appreciate this protection, *but* I will miss out on going to smart people's profiles and exploring all the great insights and reads from the things they "liked," a third wrote.