Elon Musk’s X to remove public likes, encouraging edgy content

Just a heads up, if you buy something through our links, we may get a small share of the sale. It’s one of the ways we keep the lights on here. Click here for more.

Elon Musk is at it again. The social media platform formerly known as Twitter is about to undergo another controversial transformation.

This time, it’s all about likes. Soon, you won’t be able to see what posts other users have liked, because public likes are about to vanish.

According to Haofei Wang, X’s Director of Engineering, the change aims to encourage users to engage with more “edgy” content without fearing backlash.

“Public likes are incentivizing the wrong behavior,” Wang said in response to a post by MacRumors researcher Aaron Perris. “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.”

Perris first uncovered a new flag in the iOS X app that completely disabled the likes tab on all user profiles. Wang then confirmed that X is indeed making likes private. He believes this will improve the For You algorithm by allowing users to like posts freely without worrying about who might see them.

Enrique Barragan, X’s Senior Software Engineer, offered some additional clarity.

“Once all likes on X go private, users will still be able to see who liked their own posts,” Barragan explained. “The like count or number of likes on posts and replies will still be public for all.”

So, no more snooping on what others are liking, but you’ll still see those juicy like counts.

This move is just the latest in Musk’s ongoing saga of tinkering with X. Whether this change will stick or end up in the bin of discarded ideas remains to be seen.

Have any thoughts on this? Drop us a line below in the comments, or carry the discussion to our Twitter or Facebook.

Editors’ Recommendations:

• More NSFW content is coming to X (Twitter), so expect more bots
• Elon Musk just gave Twitter Blue subscribers the option to call you
• Marc Cuban slams Twitter as Elon Musk’s echo chamber
• Elon Musk’s rebranded Twitter, X, sees a major drop in value

Kevin Raposo

Kevin is KnowTechie's founder and executive editor. With over 15 years of blogging experience in the tech industry, Kevin has transformed what was once a passion project into a full-blown tech news publication. Shoot him an email at kevin@knowtechie.com.