X, formerly Twitter, will officially start hiding public “likes” on posts, as soon as today.
The news comes from a source at the company, as reported by the Verge. A few weeks ago, reports emerged that the change (that no one asked for) would be implemented soon.
X’s director of engineering Haofei Wang confirmed the news on X back then, saying in a post, “Public likes are incentivizing the wrong behavior. For example, many people feel discouraged from liking content that might be ‘edgy’ in fear of retaliation from trolls, or to protect their public image.”
“Soon you’ll be able to like without worrying who might see it,” wrote Wang.
Elon Musk, X’s owner for the past two years, shared the news on his platform today too, writing, “Important to allow people to like posts without getting attacked for doing so!”
In place of public likes, private likes will be an option, which is already available to X’s Premium subscribers. For the rest, the number of likes on a post will still be visible and users will also still be able to see who has liked their posts.
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