Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, has endorsed a recent move to make the “Likes” feature private X (formerly Twitter).
Buterin described the move as a “good decision” in a post about the move on the decentralized social media platform Farcaster while referencing X engineer Wang Haofei’s recent confirmation of the development. He
highlights the issue of “preference falsification” in society and emphasized the “need to see people’s honest views.”
Buterin further suggested that Farcaster adopt a similar approach using “zero-knowledge (ZK) likes.” Zero-knowledge technology, often abbreviated as “zK” or “ZK”, is a cryptographic method that allows one party to prove the truth of a statement without revealing specific details. In the context of social media likes, this would mean users could like posts without revealing their identities.
Buterin proposed leveraging ZK technology from Zupoll, a tool used in the pop-up city concept, Zuzalu, which he created. Zupoll facilitates anonymous voting and decision-making in polls.
Buterin’s post on Farcaster sparked mixed reactions. One Farcaster user speculated that Twitter’s decision might be driven by growth hacks, suggesting that private likes could increase overall engagement. Another user expressed internal conflict about liking posts, emphasizing the importance of engagement metrics for understanding community reactions.
However, some users disagreed with the idea. One user argued that metrics like “the ratio” serve as effective community moderation tools on Twitter. They stated, “Disagree tbh, respectfully ofc. ‘The ratio’ is the best form of community moderation on Twitter. The reduction in social signal & community utility through things like ‘trusted’ blue ticks changes, cutting API access, and removing ‘likes’ makes Twitter increasingly less useful.”
Farcaster has experienced significant growth since its launch in August 2022. Co-founded by former Coinbase executives Dan Romero and Varun Srinivasan, the decentralized social media platform was reportedly built to provide a censorship-resistant solution for Ethereum wallet users to interact with each other.
The introduction of “Frames,” a new feature that significantly expanded the platform’s capabilities, in February 2024 led to a surge in user engagement, with casts—what users posts on the platform are called—and reactions hitting record highs.
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