David Schwartz, the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Ripple, has shared his take on why Elon Musk plans to hide interaction buttons on X (formerly Twitter).
In his characteristic manner, billionaire entrepreneur and majority owner of X, Elon Musk, has revealed plans to hide interaction buttons associated with posts on the social media outfit.
As noted, the interaction buttons, which include the repost, comment, and like icons, will be hidden from the timeline. This will only be available to users when the post is expanded. On the timeline, only the view count that X introduced in December will remain attached to posts on the timeline.
The Ripple CTO’s Take
Schwartz is convinced that the move from Elon Musk aims to protect advertisers. Per his thesis, Musk wants to make it impossible to reply to or report ads placed on the timeline. He also believes the move is designed so users will not find it easy to ignore an ad, making it less effective.
I figured out why Elon wants to get rid of the interaction buttons. He’s going to make it impossible to report or reply to ‘premium’ ads or put community notes on them and doesn’t want to make it visibly obvious in your feed or you’ll learn to ignore them.
— David “JoelKatz” Schwartz (@JoelKatz) October 7, 2023
“I figured out why Elon wants to get rid of the interaction buttons. He’s going to make it impossible to report or reply to ‘premium’ ads or put community notes on them and doesn’t want to make it visibly obvious in your feed or you’ll learn to ignore them,” his post reads.
The take from the Ripple CTO is logical since Elon Musk is now very keen on making X a profitable platform. Since his $44 billion acquisition of the firm, he has introduced a series of unique changes to drive user engagement and attract advertisers.
Plans to Censor Community Notes?
One unique feature added to the X platform is the “Community Notes,” an innovation that has garnered reactions from crypto innovators, including the Shiba Inu lead developer Shytoshi Kusama. The feature was introduced in 2021 as Birdwatch but was recently rebranded as Community Notes.
Community Notes helps correct misconceptions on posts to provide helpful context on claims that might be misleading. As a fast-growing concept, the potential shield of ads from being noted is a move that is being closely watched and might draw criticisms moving forward.
