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X Confirms Plan to Make 'Likes' Private, Remove Likes Tab From Profiles

ItsASpider said:
Now you can like all your racist conspiracies freely.
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Orrrr now I can more freely like posts that are bold enough to use terms like "pregnant women", "you guys", and other such violent hate speech without fear of being fired from my totally-hip-and-on-board-with-the-current-thing-no-matter-how-dumb-it-is tech company I work for.
 
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This is great news, now no one on social media can judge me for liking so many low-effort cat memes!
 
ItsASpider said:
You mean people who call out other people for liking appalling content? Pasting a "scary" word like "cancel culture" on people holding other people accountable is always such a senseless discourse... You're just doing the exact same thing as people calling everything they don't like "woke".
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Who then determines what content is appalling? We aren't that far removed from people being vilified for liking appalling content such as public schools should be open during covid and that we should be skeptical of rushed out vaccines.


Seanm87 said:
To be honest I never saw the point of “likes”. I think its something Facebook started and every social media copied but it doesn;t seem to serve any purpose.
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It was always meant to get you hooked on the platforms, to give you a dopamine hit that kept you on the site longer so they can serve you more ads.
 
ugahairydawgs said:
Who then determines what content is appalling?
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Simple. Just as it's been for centuries, the people promoting the content decide what content to promote. Then we get to decide which promoters we listen to. You know... free speech.
 
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They should have done it 5 or 7 years ago. Now I totally lost interest in every social network. Occasionally I use reddit and youtube if that counts, but thats it.

X/Twitter was already a dying concept of networking. It is obviously bot-driven and it is not really social network but more of a news feed. You have no communities there, you cannot create interesting threads, your only task is to follow fake and cherry-picked personalities (whose popularity is also much of a questionable phenomena). Totally useless. Even Facebook is more useful than that.

Nevertheless removing likes for posts might be a good move, people should not get fake impression that something is good only judging by likes count because bot activity has always been a profitable business for anyone who wanted to “boost” smth
 
shadowboi said:
Nevertheless removing likes for posts might be a good move, people should not get fake impression that something is good only judging by likes count because bot activity has always been a profitable business for anyone who wanted to “boost” smth
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They aren't removing like counts from posts. They are removing the list of liked posts from the profile. So nobody can tell that you like to like nazi propaganda or pictures of unicorns. But the people who post the nazi propaganda or pics of unicorns will still know that you like them.
 
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Isn't there a long list of features or changes that have been announced for the platform that have yet to materialize?
 
BaldiMac said:
They aren't removing like counts from posts. They are removing the list of liked posts from the profile. So nobody can tell that you like to like nazi propaganda or pictures of unicorns. But the people who post the nazi propaganda or pics of unicorns will still know that you like them.
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Oh, thanks for pointing out. My bad.
Technically making them semi-private is good as well, but honestly it does not make sense anymore, especially on the network of this type
 
Wando64 said:
You are saying it as if it is a bad thing.

I would not hesitate to “cancel” (distance from my life) anyone that behaves in a way that crosses my boundaries of acceptable behaviour.
This boundary might sit in different places for different people, but we all have a limit of criminal and/or morally reprehensible behaviour that we are willing to tolerate.

Anyone claiming otherwise is a liar.
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Sure. But what we have is a culture where people disagreements about policy and morals is escalated to mean so much more about them without any curiosity. It’s the narcissistic attitude of our internet personas. We believe our random misinformed slap dash opinions (me most of all) should carry moral weight by which we judge other people. Most of them are just petty disagreements.
 
Kind of hilarious how some of the biggest proponents of free speech can't take it when others use their free speech right back at them.

What's the point in free speech if you don't have the courage to stand by your words when facing ridicule and hatred for saying them?

Isn't that the exact setting where free speech is of most importance, when the whole World is against you and "the truth"?
 
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Facebook is even worse. If you like something, Facebook will tell all your friends. So if you like a beach photo of a hot woman, Facebook will inform all the other women in your friend list, your parents and your boss. That is very cringe.
 
Seanm87 said:
To be honest I never saw the point of “likes”. I think its something Facebook started and every social media copied but it doesn;t seem to serve any purpose.
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I find it funny that this post has a few likes.
Edit: also, Seanm87 has liked a lot of posts here. They must accidentally be pressing the like button when they mean to press the quote button, or something.
 
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JungleNYC said:
X is the public square. It's where public opinion is formed. It's where the sausage is made.
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No it’s not. It’s a private square owned by a single person whose rules would never actually fly in a real public square. And my opinion is never formed based on anything on that garbage website. However, my personal opinion of people who choose that venue to express their opinion and pay to do it could not be lower.
 
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jblank said:
It is a bad thing. If someone makes a statement that I like and I don't find controversial, but some HAMAS loving Columbia infant finds abhorrent, why should they come after me because their feelings got hurt? The Overton Window of what is "acceptable" to certain people has been pushed so far out of the mainstream that benign comments such as liking a post that let's say, contained the phrase "illegal alien", is now viewed like it's some sort of hate crime.

Spreading criminality or trying to foment acts of violence is an entirely different thing, but let's stop venturing into thoughtcrime territory. We need to get back to just ignoring bad people or bad ideas, things we don't like. Not everything has to be a war. Social media is cancer.
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I don't believe for a second that you would be able to ignore if, let's say, your dentist were to post on X about his lust for small children.
You can call it "thoughtcrime" as much as you want, but you'd be looking for a new dentist in less of the time it takes to say "Freedom of speech".
 
truthsteve said:
it is a bad thing. why should your arbitrary boundary decide the fate of one's career?
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Never mind my boundaries, let's talk about yours.
Where do you draw the line? Paedophilia? Serial killing? Terrorism? Slavery? Torture?
 
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