X made your likes private

After announcing the changes last month, X has now rolled out an update to make all likes within the app private.

As X points out, users will still be able to see the posts they like within the app, but other users won't be able to see them, which X believes will give users more freedom to engage with content within the app.

As X Engineer Wang Haofei said last month:

“Public liking encourages the wrong behavior: for example, many people hesitate to like content that they think may be “extreme” for fear of retaliation from trolls or to protect their own image. Soon, you'll be able to like without worrying about who sees it.“

So if you're into “edgy” content, you can “like” that content on X without worrying about people searching for your activity later. It also helps tell the algorithm what you're interested in, so that content will show up more in your feed.

This could point to other areas of opportunity that X may or may not be exploring.

For a long time – basically forever – pornography has played a key role in X's engagement, and the platform has turned a blind eye to explicit content being uploaded to the app. X has rules about what is allowed, but essentially, pornography has been tolerated for a long time – although they're not always clearly explained in X's terms.

Recently X As a result of updating our adult content policy,“Consensually produced and distributed adult nudity and sexual activity” is now officially allowed within the app.

The idea here is that X could be establishing another revenue stream by allowing adult content producers to monetize the videos they upload within the app through OnlyFans-style subscriptions. X already drives a lot of traffic to OnlyFans from X profiles promoting OF accounts, and updating the rules could help X take the next step of fostering partnerships with its own adult creators to drive usage and subscriptions.

This is something Twitter has explored in the past, and hidden likes could also play a role in this regard, by allowing more users to engage with such posts without fear of their private interests being exposed.

Or maybe X is simply convinced that more people would engage with more divisive and controversial content if they felt they could do so without being judged.

I mean, as many have pointed out, your likes aren't publicly available on other platforms, so it makes sense that X would follow suit in this context, but it also feels like X is trying to encourage more questionable behavior or aggravate certain interests by removing any possibility of public accountability for such things.

That doesn't seem like a huge change, though. But what if it's a sign of something else?

Either way, likes are now private on X.

You can tap that heart on anything you like and not have to worry about it working against you.