Back in 2015, Twitter replaced a star with the heart or “Like” button, which gets used by millions as a quick way of sending an acknowledgment of someone’s tweet. Sadly though, the feature has become subject to abuse by the likes of bots to boost its visibility in lists, and in people’s timelines because of its popularity.
While Twitter is said to have been considering a move to remove the Like button for the very reason, a recent report by The Telegraph claimed that Twitter would “soon” be removing the feature.
Twitter is planning to remove the ability to “like” tweets in a radical move that aims to improve the quality of debate on the social network. Founder Jack Dorsey last week admitted at a Twitter event that he was not a fan of the heart-shaped button and that it would be getting rid of it “soon”.
However, Twitter has just confirmed that there is no timeline for the move, nor is it happening in the near future (via TechCrunch).
“As we’ve been saying for a while, we are rethinking everything about the service to ensure we are incentivizing healthy conversation, that includes the like button,” tweeted the Twitter Comms account in response to The Telegraph story. “We are in the early stages of the work and have no plans to share right now.”
As we’ve been saying for a while, we are rethinking everything about the service to ensure we are incentivizing healthy conversation, that includes the like button. We are in the early stages of the work and have no plans to share right now. https://t.co/k5uPe5j4CW
— Twitter Comms (@TwitterComms) October 29, 2018
Instead of removing the Like button, it would be a better idea for Twitter to include a variety of responses similar to Facebook’s, or simply change how a Like affects a Tweet’s position in its algorithms.
