X to allow the hiding of likes on posts

Elon Musk says the feature will allow users to like posts without “getting attacked” for doing so.

Earlier this month, what used to be Twitter officially allowed adult content on its website. Now, Musk wants to allow users to hide what they like.

“Important to allow people to like posts without getting attacked for doing so!” Musk said, commenting on the private likes feature in a post on X.

The new feature could be an attempt to incentivize users to interact with X posts more, increasing engagement statistics. Meanwhile, last May, X’s director of engineering, Haofei Wang, explained that some users refrain from liking “edgy” posts in fear of retaliation 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,” Haofei said.

On June 11th, X senior software engineer Enrique Barragan hinted at the launch of a secret feature, rumored to be “private likes.” However, later Barragan said the launch was pushed to June 12th over “some last minute fixes.”

The feature will hide the “Likes tab” from a user's profile, so only users themselves will see posts they’ve interacted with. Users will still be able to see who has liked their posts.