Elon Musk’s X to remove likes and reposts from timeline within ‘weeks’
The social media platform X could be removing likes and reposts from view on the timeline “within the next few weeks,” according to a software engineer at X.
“I’m not working on this change myself, but employees are still dogfooding it. It should be gradually rolled out to users in the next few weeks and the UX may change by then,” said X software engineer Ellis Driscoll in an April 29 post.
Drsicoll’s comments came in response to a demo video of the unreleased user experience (UX) which shows an “exploding menu” where likes and reposts are contained within a separate menu on the home screen, originally shared by X’s head of payments Christopher Stanley.
Driscoll noted that the video shared by Stanley was actually just the “more” menu and not necessarily the overarching UX for X users. He said the main functionality of the new UX would be comprised of “simple gestures.”
“Liking should be equally fast. Replying should be faster,” he added.
Notably, X users would still be able to view the number of likes and reposts on any given post but would need to select each post individually to see these metrics.
Stanley added that the new user interface would see users engage with posts by way of a “long press and then swipe to choice,” something he said was “kinda like a video game interface.”
Related: X payments details released: App to become your bank account
Instagram hid public like counts — dubbed ‘hearts’ — on its app in 2021 as part of an attempt to appease mental health concerns around the app by downranking like-based competition between typically younger users of the social media platform.
However, X has not yet offered much in the way of a material explanation for why it is removing likes — apart from several comments from Stanely which alluded to the new features being more focused on upgrading UX and fitting as much content on the screen as possible.
Several accounts on X suggested that the new model could help shift focus toward the substance of posts themselves and help stem the tide of posts that may be more focused on engagement.
Meanwhile, critics said the new feature could help the social media platform push content that appeals to their internal teams without users being able to identify why a post is trending, much in a similar way to Instagram and TikTok.
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