X is rolling out private likes as soon as today, according to a source at the company. That means what users like on the platform will be hidden by default, which is already an option for X’s Premium subscribers.
A few weeks ago, the company’s director of engineering, Haofei Wang, said the 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. 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, according to X senior software engineer Enrique Barragan. (He also hinted at the launch today in a post.)
“Soon you’ll be able to like without worrying who might see it,” Wang said in a post.
Late last year, X owner Elon Musk 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”). Musk’s goal was to remove the section that contained the like and repost buttons entirely because Musk believed likes weren’t important, a source told me at the time.
“Social media in general is shifting away from like counts, so this makes sense,” the source said. “Part of me thinks [Musk] just wants to disassociate from Twitter more and more.”