The social media platform X, which used to be called Twitter, is now hiding your likes from other users.
In an update posted on the platform earlier this week, X’s engineering team said they would be “making Likes private for everyone to better protect your privacy.”
This means that users will still be able to see the posts they’ve liked, but other people won’t be able to see them. This change puts an end to a feature that many people had been using for a long time.
The change started on Wednesday. By the afternoon, the “Likes” tab seemed to only be available on users’ own profile pages. When visiting other people’s accounts, that tab is no longer there.
Users also got a pop-up notification that seemed to suggest the change would make people engage with the platform more.
“Liking more posts will make your ‘For you’ feed better,” the message said.
According to the update from the engineering team, users will still be able to see the number of likes and other stats for their own posts under their notifications. Posts still show how many likes they have, but only the person who made the post will be able to see a list of the people who liked it.
Before this change, only paying Premium subscribers had the option to hide their likes. When X announced that option in September, they said users could “keep spicy likes private by hiding your likes tab.”
Hiding the like count is just one of many changes that have happened to the platform since billionaire Elon Musk bought it for $44 billion in 2022. Besides a new name and logo, other changes include getting rid of the once-important blue check marks for non-Premium users and then giving them back to some people.
The changes within the app have gotten mixed reactions on the platform.
For example, in the early days of X removing the verification badges from well-known officials and news organizations, many people were worried about the spread of false information.
The platform has also faced increasing pushback from users and advertisers because of ongoing concerns about how well it moderates content.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.