X is making your likes private, as of Wednesday.
“Important change: your likes are now private,” Musk said after the announcement was made through the X Engineering account.
Yes, before this, anyone could go to your page and see what you liked on the X platform, unless you were a premium user.
Individuals will still be able to view their own likes – and like counts still appear individual posts – but the general public will no longer be able to access another account’s likes. A notification letting users know about the change popped up on accounts Wednesday as the Likes tab disappeared from being shown on others’ accounts.
“We are making Likes private for everyone to better protect your privacy,” the notification states. “Liking more posts will make your ‘For you’ feed better.”
The update was teased back in May by X Engineering Director Haofei Wang.
“Public likes are incentivizing the wrong behavior,” Wang wrote on his X account. “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. Also a reminder that the more posts you like, the better your For you algorithm will become.”
News of the update received a mixed response from users. Many decried “stalking” other people’s likes as a favorite passtime on the app, while others used it to vet the quality of person another user might be.
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