Thanks to X showing what its users “like” on its platform, politicians and public personalities have been caught looking at salacious and unsavory tweets in the past. Now, the platform formerly known as Twitter is making likes mostly private, and according to company chief Elon Musk, it’s an important change so that people can “like posts without getting attacked for doing so.” The company originally launched the ability to hide the likes tab as a perk for X Premium subscribers last year. “[K]eep spicy likes private,” X said when it announced the new feature.
This week we’re making Likes private for everyone to better protect your privacy.
– You will still be able to see posts you have liked (but others cannot).
– Like count and other metrics for your own posts will still show up under notifications.
– You will no longer see who…
— Engineering (@XEng) June 11, 2024
In a new tweet, X’s Engineering account has revealed that the social network is making likes private for everyone this week. Users will no longer be able to see who liked someone else’s post, which means likes on the platform will no longer cause PR crises for public figures who like sexual, hateful and other unpalatable posts in general. They can still see who liked their tweets, however, along with their like count and other metrics for their own posts.
This rollout kills one reason for getting a premium subscription, though. The company’s advertising revenue took a nosedive last year, and it launched two new tiers for its subscription service to help solve some of its financial woes. The Premium+ tier costs users $16 per month and removes ads from their timelines, while the cheapest tier costs users $3 a month and doesn’t come with the website’s blue checkmark.