Elon Musk is officially making X likes private

X, formerly Twitter, has officially start hiding public “likes” on posts, from today onwards.

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!”