Elon Musk Wants to Hide Likes on X to Protect Users from Backlash

In a recent post on X, the social media platform’s director of engineering Haofei Wang has announced that likes will soon be private by default for all users (via Gizmodo).

This move, proposed by X owner Elon Musk himself, is intended to encourage more authentic engagement by allowing users to like content without fear of public backlash or damage to their public image.

Wang highlighted this upcoming feature in a post earlier this week, explaining that public likes often deter users from engaging with content that could be considered controversial or “edgy.”

“We are making likes private,” Wang said in a post on X. “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.”

Currently, X Premium subscribers already have the option to hide their liked posts, a feature introduced last September. However, Wang’s tweet indicates that this option may soon be extended to all users, enhancing privacy across the platform.

The existing public likes feature has often exposed celebrities and public figures, revealing their engagement with controversial or explicit content.

Notable incidents include Senator Ted Cruz’s account liking a pornographic video, which he later attributed to a staffer, and Samuel L. Jackson being caught liking hardcore pornography, which he quickly unliked after fans noticed. Musk himself has faced criticism for his likes, such as an anti-trans tweet from the right-wing account Libs of TikTok.

Musk has previously expressed intentions to hide like and repost counts from the main timeline, displaying only view counts. Users would need to click on individual posts to see the number of likes and reposts.