Paid subscribers to X, formerly Twitter, will now be able to hide the Likes tab from public view, the company announced today. When enabled, the tab disappears entirely from an X Premium user’s profile.
Private Likes are the latest exclusive feature X owner Elon Musk has introduced for people who pay to use the platform. Musk has said in the past that he sought likes to be private. The bookmarking feature available to all users could be used in a similar way if a user wanted to keep things private. A screenshot shared by the official X account suggests that likes aren’t totally hidden: a Premium user’s likes are still visible on individual posts, according to the screenshot. It’s also unclear what would happen if a user ever stopped paying for X Premium, though it seems likely that the Likes tab would reappear at that point.
There have been multiple cases over the years where Twitter likes have embarrassed high-profile users, who often didn’t seem to realize that their likes were public.
In 2017, after Ted Cruz’s official account liked a pornographic clip, Senator blamed an employee who said he had pressed the wrong button. Something similar It happened to pop star Harry Styles in 2014 (he ultimately didn’t like it and favorited a bunch of animal pictures instead). Also happened to Samuel L. Jackson.
Musk’s own likes remain public. In a post on X, he saying He recommends keeping them publicly visible and using the bookmarking feature for “interesting posts.” His most recent likes include Musk fan accounts posting quotes and photos of him, memes, and a post from an account called “End Wokeness.”
Musk has been adding features to X Premium to entice people to pay for the service, which starts at $8 per month in the United States. Last month the first round of creator payments arrived for users who are part of a monetization program. Payments are based on some calculation of the number of views a post gets, although it’s unclear how exactly payments are determined. X Premium subscribers also have the option to hide the blue check they pay for from appearing on their profile, perhaps a good way to avoid this. memes making fun of them.
