Elon Musk Says New Feature Shows 'How Much More Alive' Twitter Is — Here's What It's All About

Elon Musk's Twitter has rolled out a view count feature that allows everyone to see how many people have seen a tweet. 

What Happened: Twitter said on Thursday that "views" for tweets are now visible on iOS and Android. The feature is also active on Twitter's web interface. 

See Also: Elon Musk's Twitter Introducing Blue, Gold And Gray Checkmarks Isn't Inclusive Of Color-Blind People?

Users who cannot yet see this feature enabled on their app simply need to update it to the latest version. 

Replies and likes don’t tell the whole story. We’re making it easier to tell *just* how many people have seen your Tweets with the addition of view counts, shown right next to likes. Now on iOS and Android, web coming soon.https://t.co/hrlMQyXJfx

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) December 22, 2022

Musk said tweets are read more than "they are liked." The new feature "shows how much more alive Twitter is than it may seem," he said, citing statistics about user engagement.  

Replies and likes don’t tell the whole story. We’re making it easier to tell *just* how many people have seen your Tweets with the addition of view counts, shown right next to likes. Now on iOS and Android, web coming soon.https://t.co/hrlMQyXJfx

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) December 22, 2022

Twitter is rolling out View Count, so you can see how many times a tweet has been seen! This is normal for video.

Shows how much more alive Twitter is than it may seem, as over 90% of Twitter users read, but don’t tweet, reply or like, as those are public actions.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 22, 2022

Why It's Important: Musk announced the feature on Dec. 1, implying that he intends to show view counts for all tweets, just as they are shown for videos. 

In 2021, Instagram and Facebook started allowing users to hide the number of likes on their posts. Similarly, YouTube also started hiding public dislike counts — only creators can see how many people clicked the thumbs-down button on their posts. 

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