Elon Musk has fulfilled his “threat”. The billionaire confirmed yesterday Tuesday that all “Likes” on Twitter will be private, preventing you from checking which people have liked the tweets you see. As reported by The Verge, this update will be available starting today Wednesday. Currently, Premium users can already hide their “Likes”, but, after this change, this option will be the default for all users.
Musk justified this decision by stating in a tweet that it is “important to allow people to ‘like’ posts without being attacked for doing so“. This stance is in line with the statements of Twitter’s Director of Engineering, Haofei Wang, who mentioned last month that the privacy of “likes” would encourage interaction with “bold” content without fear of being ridiculed. Twitter Senior Software Engineer Enrique Barragán confirmed that, although “likes” will still be counted and show their authorship for the authors of the tweets, it will not be possible to see who likes other people’s posts or their “likes” tabs.
For years, the “Like” tab was one of the simplest ways to know the deepest intentions, ideologies, and tastes of many public figures. However, Musk’s new regime believes that the platform would be better off without this feature, as it facilitates user interaction with content without the worry of “what will people say”.
Musk has previously expressed his vision of simplifying Twitter, hiding not only the “Likes” but also the posts themselves in the feeds. At the moment, it is unknown when he will implement these measures, but it would be expected that he will put them into action in the coming months.
The decision to hide “Likes” may seem like a measure to protect privacy, but it also removes a feature that has served to “unmask” many celebrities. Cases like that of Ted Cruz and Samuel L. Jackson, who were caught liking “questionable” content, illustrate how this feature has been essential in maintaining transparency on the platform.
In Spain, “Likes” were still visible by default on Twitter until noon today. Interestingly, Musk’s tab showed that he had liked several memes about the partnership between Apple and OpenAI that criticized their alleged privacy issues.
