It could soon be harder to discern which posts are genuinely popular on X.
The platform formerly known as Twitter will move away from showing retweet and like counts on the homepage, owner Elon Musk said in an X post on Friday (October 6).
As a result, you’ll only be able to see the view count on the main timeline, with the other metrics visible when you tap or click on a post.
The move is the latest in a flurry of divisive product changes ushered in by Musk, who has overseen Twitter’s rebrand to X, started charging users for verification, and recently removed text from links shared on the the platform.
Critics claim the changes will lead to an influx of misleading and outright false content on the site. An EU report recently found that X had the highest ratio of disinformation posts of all large social media platforms, prompting concerns that the company could be fined under the bloc’s sweeping new laws on fake news.
Musk announced the latest change in a reply that is only visible to his subscribers on X, a screenshot of which was posted by an account known for sharing news about the company. X previously hid quote tweets from under posts on desktop, which now require several steps to view.
PREVIEW: X will remove the interaction counts (likes, reposts) from the main timeline, leaving only view counts. You will be able to see these numbers when you tap into a post.
— X News Daily (@xDaily) October 6, 2023
The intent of this is to improve readability. pic.twitter.com/RMbypx3bwh
The update could be part of a plan to make X more like YouTube. Musk has previously tried to entice creators by offering a portion of revenue from the adverts shown next to tweets. The payouts are limited to those signed up to the X Premium monthly subscription service.
X has also started showing a slideshow of videos on mobile in the style of TikTok. The scrollable feed is available when you tap on a clip on the app. Notably, YouTube also only shows views on many parts of its site, reserving comments and likes for when you click through to a video.
Musk explained that the motivation behind the change, and the recent decision to remove headlines from story links, is to improve X’s design.
“Those ugly URL cards with repetitive text were making my eyes bleed. So much better now!” he said in a post.
“Next, we’ll remove all the action buttons with their superfluous interaction counts from the main timeline. Just view count will show, unless you tap into a post,” he continued, adding “this will greatly improve readability.”
