The reason why Elon Musk has made Twitter ‘Likes’ private according to some internet theories

It’s been nearly a decade since Twitter swapped the thumbs-up icon for a heart to symbolize when users on the social media platform liked something posted by another member of the online community. The gesture could help send a person’s message, meme or mere musings viral as more and more people took notice.

Especially so if that someone giving a “Like” carried significant influence or heft on the platform and in real life. But now that latter wind in the sails of a post to capture the attention of other denizens on Twitter will not be there. By default, the public will not be able to see who ‘Liked’ what, only the person who gets the like and the one who gave it.

Elon Musk has made a number of changes to the social media platform since taking over Twitter over two years ago, including its name now called X. So what’s behind this latest tweak, making ‘Likes’ anonymous?

The reason why Elon Musk has made Twitter ‘Likes’ private according to some internet theories

Users that opened up their account on Wednesday got an alert stating, “Your Likes are now private.”

“We are making Likes private for everyone to better protect your privacy,” the message went on to explain. The change isn’t meant to discourage users from continuing with the practice of indicating their preferences for what they see posted on X though. “Liking more posts will make your ‘for you’ feed better,” the alert added.

In response to the idea users had their own thoughts about the real motivation behind “protecting privacy” mainly that people, especially political figures, wouldn’t get caught out for liking certain content that they perhaps shouldn’t have.

There have been several cases where sexually explicit images were liked by politicians’ accounts such as Senator Ted Cruz in 2017. In his defense, Cruz blamed the incident on a staffer.

X director of engineering Haofei Wang admitted as much prior to the rollout when confirming that the change was coming. “Public likes are incentivising the wrong behaviour. 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,” he wrote.

Even Musk said that the move to protect users privacy was to save users from getting egg on their face/reputation. “Important to allow people to like posts without getting attacked for doing so,” he wrote in response to a post announcing the imminent arrival of likes being hidden so that “users will be able to like content without worrying about who might see it.”