Meanwhile: on #X #SocialMedia
X will officially start hiding public "likes" on posts, as soon as today.
The news comes from a source at the company, as reported by the Verge.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/11/24176247/x-likes-hidden-private-rollout
A few weeks ago, reports emerged that the change (that no one asked for) would be implemented soon.
X's director of engineering Haofei Wang confirmed the news on X back then, saying in a post, "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 worrying who might see it," wrote Wang.
"Important to allow people to like posts without getting attacked for doing so!"
In other words, "we don't want you seeing that we are liking racist posts, misleading posts, disinformation posts, and we definitely don't want you seeing that we like posts in favor of Russia and any other countries lead by dictators etc"
Looking at what users "like" is a good way to gage what they are about that's why musk wants it private
@ecksmc Could this backfire on him? If you can't see how many likes a post has gotten, are you less likely to like and repost? There are plenty of haters out there who need to be part of a mob to feel safe enough to express their hate.
@elbutterfield users can still see posts we like via our profile likes column
And the number of likes still show on posts but as of today tapping the likes(that are numbered at bottom of each post)opens a blank page unless its your post
@ecksmc Thanks for the details. I am not on X any more. Gave it up when he bought it. So it does look like - big surprise - this move only furthers his agenda. Ugh.