Are we ‘like’ done here? X’s move to hide likes is the latest sign of their declining power as social media currency
X. In the last week of May, the platform announced that users would no longer be able to see who has liked someone else’s post or view the “Likes” tab on other users’ profiles. “My friends saw the ‘Likes’ tab as a way to subtly background-check guys they were interested in,” says the 23-year-old social media marketing professional.
She saw her additional disappointment reflected in a post the morning after the announcement, calling it a sad day for someone curating likes for their imaginary admirer. “In reality, many of us were curating likes for an imaginary voyeur,” says Kulkarni.
As a result, she now finds herself liking fewer tweets, that too mostly of people in her social circle to express support and solidarity. The platform justifies the move by saying it was to allow people to freely like edgy content.
However, Kulkarni asks, “What if most of these likes are from bots? What if people are using likes as bookmarks because they are private now?” There is no way to check this anymore. The authenticity and charm of a like on X is gone, she says.
In 2009-10, Facebook introduced the “Like” button as a small thumbs-up symbol to indicate positive affirmation. In the next decade and a half, every other social media platform went about commodifying people’s innate need to be liked.
Thus, a simple thumbs-up icon became the most significant motif of social media interactions. Its influence was so powerful that in 2015, Twitter renamed its “Favourites” as “Likes”. It also serves as the starting point for the catchphrase “Like-ShareSubscribe”, which is ubiquitous in YouTube’s creator community.
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