So, X/Twitter decided to take away one of my most beloved features: the public Likes tab on profiles. And while Elon has hinted that they might bring it back in some capacity because of all the backlash…
… they might not. A few weeks out and other employees are still rubbing it in.
But either way, we’re gonna go over the impact of this decision as well as document what we can learn from the feature for the long run.
And to anyone who’s like, “… She just posted a 40-minute video about the Twitter Likes tab”. Yes, I did. It deserves that… especially if it ends up gone forever. It’s historic and should be documented as so.
Let’s go over the basics.
The public Likes tab on profiles is somewhat unique to Twitter and has been around since its early days. Likes have always been default public on the platform with no option for otherwise. On TikTok, people’s Likes tab is default private but with the option for otherwise, and someone like Taylor Swift has decided to make hers public to add another social layer for fans checking her account. On Instagram, while there’s never been the ability to make your Likes public in their entirety through a feed view on your profile, they used to have a “Following” feed within Activity where you could chronologically see what your Following list was engaging with on the platform. Instagram got rid of this in 2019 due to users’ lack of awareness that their activity was being shown there along with other privacy concerns. People’s relationship with Instagram’s Following feed was quite different, as you couldn’t filter down to individual accounts and you’d have to be very attentive to it because of how much data was piling in the more people you followed.
But back to Twitter. The absence of the public Likes tab on profiles causes a shift in how users compartmentalize their identity, how they curate, how they come across new accounts and thoughts and media void of the algorithm, how they vet someone and assess their being, how they subtly communicate with others… the list goes on.
Can we survive without it? Yes *eye roll*. The conversation about it being taken away has already diminished because, unlike me who won’t let the X/Twitter team live it down, people tap out quickly and move on to the next big cultural moment. But still, does its absence diminish the compellingness and value of Twitter? Also yes. If you’re an active user who didn’t check other people’s Likes, you’ve missed out on a valuable experience.
So what happened?
Hiding the public Likes tab became an option for Premium users like myself back in September 2023, but many (if not the vast majority of) Premium users decided to keep them public. The announcement back then was,
The description states: “Your Likes tab on your profile will only be visible to you. Your Likes timeline will also be hidden from the X APIs (meaning third parties won’t be able to retrieve the info, but not that the info won’t be utilized in the recommendation algorithm). Your individual Likes will still be visible on posts”.
Bringing in the option to hide Likes is fine. Though I did say,
But ultimately, again, I’m a huge supporter of choice when it comes to our social media experience. For example, in 2022 I tweeted Elon saying,
We should be able to cater our experience to our liking. I tend to dislike designs focused on quantities/metrics but enjoy designs that allow for a better personal assessment of quality — and the two often aren’t aligned on social media because of these platforms’ incentives. Other users see it differently or have different preferences and that’s cool, they should be able to customize accordingly.
But Elon decided to go an entirely different route. The X Engineering account announced,
So to reiterate, not only is the public Likes tab on profiles gone, but you can no longer tap on a post’s Likes and see who Liked it (aside from your own)… you can’t even see who Liked the replies on your posts. When it comes to other platforms, Instagram makes this information public, but TikTok does not. On Twitter, a lot of people are worried this allows bot engagement to have more free reign… but we’ll leave that conversation somewhat separate and for another time.