X, formerly Twitter, has removed public likes from posts made to the platform.

The site began the rollout of the update on Wednesday with users receiving a prompt when they open the application that their likes are now private.

According to a report from NBC News, users will still be able to see which posts they have liked themselves and who liked their own posts, but not who liked someone else’s posts.

NBC News said that X’s director of engineering, Haofei Wang, had teased the update over two weeks ago stating that being able to see who likes other posts incentivises the wrong behaviour as people are often deterred from liking a post for fear of retaliation from trolls, or to protect their image. He added that by making likes private, it removes the worry that many people endure.

Since billionaire Elon Musk took over Twitter in 2022, it has undergone vast changes including the platform’s name.

Now X has joined Instagram which has adjusted how likes are displayed on the photo and video sharing platform.