X Modifies Likes Visibility, Sparks Debate Among Users
Since the arrival of Elon Musk as the new owner of Twitter (now X), along with his centralist policies regarding right-wing conservatives, lifting political opinion bans, and promoting large-scale freedom of speech, several people have turned against him for so-called unjust and inconsiderate actions.
Recently, X has faced criticism from tech gurus and some of its own users as it introduced a new feature that will remove the likes tab on its user accounts. Nonetheless, the total like count and who liked their post-viewing option for replies and posts will still be available. The only difference will be that this time you will not have the option to view who liked someone else’s post on their profile.
To compensate for the view other likes option on other people’s profiles, X introduced a new feature for Premium subscribers: Private Likes. By using the private like option, your likes on any reply or post will not be visible for public viewing.
Haofei Wang, the engineering director at X, believes that by user’s reputation publicly is much more likely to be protected by hiding the likes feature. He tweeted in May, considering the effect on the public as “incentivizing the wrong behavior.”
The engineering director Mr. Wang further added to his statement that people restrain themselves from liking any content that might not be per the norms of society, such as being edgy, since they want to avoid social judgment, trolling, and other people’s retaliation to save their public perception.
To further clarify the term edgy, Mr. Wang clarified that it may be anything that is 18 plus and NSFW related.
The private-like policy is a chain reaction to X’s newly lifted sanctions against NSFW content, allowing for viewing and posting adult content that requires viewers’ discretion. Therefore, removing the view public likes option will give users more freedom to enjoy the content as much as they desire.
X is the most social media platform to weigh in your public opinions and indulge in public discourse. The administration takes its users’ privacy very seriously and initiates steps allowing them to speak their minds openly without fear. That is why one of the reasons why this new feature was put into action was because Ted Cruz, the US Texas Senator, liked adult sexual content. Liu Xiaoming, the Chinese ambassador to the UK, liked a post that disapproved of the moral ideology of the Chinese Communist Party.
In fact, the Owner of X itself, Elon Musk, enjoys and likes NSFW and adult content but that’s not a secret to anyone.
Image: DIW-Aigen
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