Twitter, Or 'X,' Hides Likes, Ending Era Of Open Snooping And Ushering In Era Of Unleashed Liking

For all of Twitter history, users could see what posts a specific user "liked" on the platform. While one wonders what utility this feature was initially intended to have, it often resulted in users being caught liking adult content in 4K, such as when Ted Cruz famously got caught liking a Reality Kings video on 9/11 in 2017.

In the latest change to "X" since Elon Musk took over the platform, a user's likes will now be hidden to the public, ushering in an era where Twitter users can like whatever they want with abandon — and people have been signaling exactly the kind of content they'll be "liking" in this new era.

Musk openly stated on X that the change was made to "allow people to like posts without getting attacked for doing so!" X's director of engineering, Haofei Wang, also stated that the change was being made because "many people feel discouraged from liking content that might be 'edgy' in fear of retaliation from trolls, or to protect their public image," according to a report from Economic Times.

Some have speculated that the move could be to manipulate the tenor of political discussion, given the trouble Musk has gotten in previously for engaging with right-wing conspiracy theories on the app.

Whatever the case may be, the immediate response has been a whole lot of wink wink, nudge nudge from the site's enjoyers of uncensored media.

A similar outpouring of smirking happened when Twitter / X introduced Bookmarks, which let others know exactly how many times a tweet had been "saved" but not liked, leading many to realize just how many folks were making sure they could bring up specific "adult content" tweets later.