The controversial tycoon has made several changes to X since he bought it for a whopping $44bn in October 2022. 

Social media site X has begun hiding what posts users publicly like from other users, a move backed by owner Elon Musk.

“Important change: your likes are now private,” Musk said.

The company’s engineering account had first teased the idea earlier last month. 

“Public likes are incentivising the wrong behaviour,” X engineer Haofei Wang wrote on the site. 

“For example, many people feel discouraged from liking content that might be ‘edgy’ in fear of retaliation from trolls, or to protect their public image. Soon you’ll be able to like without worrying who might see it,” Wang added. 

Two days ago, Musk commented on the importance of allowing “people to like posts without getting attacked for doing so”.

Users can still see the posts that they like, but others cannot. 

In March, Musk said that he eventually plans for posts on X to only show the view count instead of that of likes and retweets as well. 

The move has ignited a wave of critics of Musk’s management of X, who have called his latest move an opportunity for extended fabrication and manipulation on the platform. 

“So basically you are taking the community’s ability to validate a post’s engagement by verifying who liked a post. Now, you basically can run bot campaigns without anyone being able to verify its legitimacy. Are you preparing this platform for election interference?” one user wrote in response to X changes. 

“Now, we won’t be able to track politicians like Rishi Sunak getting thousands of likes from paid bot armies,” another user wrote.

“There’ll certainly be a lot more of that during the American elections. But now it will be hidden. As always, Elon Musk is helping the forces that are attacking democracy,” the same user added. 

Other users cited that the move is to protect politicians from embarrassing scandals like in the case of U.S. politician Ted Cruz, who liked a sexually explicit tweet in 2017.

The removal of likes comes after the social media company tweaked its policies to allow adult content on the platform.

Earlier this month, X announced it would allow pornographic content on its platform but says it will block adult and violent posts from being seen by users who are under 18.

Similar policies have been allowed for violent content , including violent speech or media.

Loss of support

Since acquiring X in a $44bn deal, the Tesla mogul has been on a mission to turn the platform into a WeChat-style “super app” with numerous functions in one site.

This ambitious goal however has resulted in Musk steering X to drop not only in value but also in recognition, as the once applauded platform has witnessed more humiliations since its creation. 

Earlier this year, it was revealed that the number of X users in the U.S. had slumped by more than a fifth since Musk bought and rebranded the platform. 

According to Sensor Tower, a market intelligence firm, in February, X had 27 million daily active users of its mobile app in the U.S. – down 18 percent from a year earlier. 

Sensor Tower said the U.S. user base has been flat or down every month since November 2022, Musk’s first full month owning the app.