Following Reports, Twitter Denies Like Button Being Removed

Following speculation that Twitter would do away with its “like” button, the social network's official PR account said no such change was coming anytime soon.

A report Monday from the Telegraph cited a statement from founder and CEO Jack Dorsey at a Twitter event last week in which Dorsey reportedly expressed displeasure with the feature, saying it would be gone “soon.”

A flurry of public interest in the possible change apparently prompted the San Francisco-based company to issue a response Monday morning. The Twitter Comms account, which Twitter uses to clarify feature and policy changes, said changes to the like button would not come soon.

The site is apparently exploring different changes to foster “healthy conversation,” an initiative Twitter has been publicly talking about since at least May. Twitter admitted changes to the like button could some as part of this, but said it was “in the early stages of the work” and would not comment further at this time.

Twitter’s like button used to be intended as more of a tweet bookmarking feature, with the word “favorite” used instead of “like.” The site controversially changed it to “like” in 2015, bringing it more in line with other social networks, like Facebook and Instagram. Twitter rolled out a separate bookmarking feature in February.

Targeted advertising may be a reason Twitter does not entirely get rid of likes. The company reported $650 million in digital advertising revenue in its third-quarter earnings report last week, a 29 percent year-over-year increase. User interactions with tweets are sometimes used to dictate targeted advertising, according to Twitter’s business website.

Twitter did not immediately respond when asked if user likes are used in targeted advertising.

Since its launch in July 2006, Twitter has emerged as a top social media site, boasting roughly 335 million average monthly active users.