Liked Embarrassing Posts On Elon Musk's X? Likes Will Soon Be Private To Curb 'Incentivizing The Wrong Behavior'

If you're worried that you've liked some embarrassing posts on X, formerly Twitter, a solution is coming soon to solve your problem.

What Happened: Elon Musk’s X is set to make likes private, one of the engineers of the social media company revealed in a post on Tuesday.

Expressing concern about the negative impact of public likes on user behavior, the engineer revealed that the "Likes" tab will soon be hidden. This is aimed at preventing people from going through all the liked posts of other users.

"Public likes are incentivizing the wrong behavior. 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."

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The engineer also pointed out that empowering people to like posts without worrying about those being seen by others will also improve recommendations in the For You feed.

Yeah, we are making likes private.

Public likes are incentivizing the wrong behavior. 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… https://t.co/vPGllc4pB0

— Haofei (@wanghaofei) May 22, 2024

See Also: Elon Musk Is In A ‘League Of His Own,' Says Steve Jobs And Tesla CEO's Biographer: ‘He's A Serial Tasker'

Why It Matters: X's decision to make likes private comes after a series of changes to the social media platform. In 2023, X introduced a feature allowing paid users to hide their likes. This move was seen as a response to similar features on rival platforms Threads and Bluesky.

Earlier this year, X started testing a new video game-like interface for likes and reposts. This design overhaul, led by X’s senior director of security engineering, Christopher Stanley, aimed to make the platform more user-friendly.

Last week, Musk revealed that the platform’s AI-powered chatbot, Grok, will soon offer a humorous take on the news, similar to “The Daily Show” and “Colbert Report” from the old days.

Musk's vision for the social media platform even received praise from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey who called X “freedom technology” after quitting Twitter-killer Bluesky.

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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of Benzinga Neuro and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.

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