X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, received a number of new features this week. However, they are exclusive to X Premium subscribers, the $8 per month subscription service formerly called Twitter Blue.
So, what are they?
Hide your preferences
First, X announced the rollout of a feature that will allow Premium users to do just that hide which posts they liked. The Likes tab is usually located on the user’s profile. By hiding the tab, visitors to a user’s profile will no longer be able to see the feed of posts the user has liked.
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Premium subscribers can find the option to hide likes by clicking Premium, then Preferences, followed by Early Access. The Profile Customization tab will then display a checkbox that hides the Likes tab.
Because likes are not sent through a user’s feed to their followers the way a repost (also known as a retweet) normally is, some users have apparently liked posts without realizing that others on the platform can see what they like found. This has caused problems for some users over the years because politicians liked it pornographic tweets to X owner Elon Musk himself who explicitly likes it racist messages.
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Musk is to trivialize the new feature, however, and actually encourages users to keep their likes open. He suggested that users who want to save messages privately should use the built-in bookmark option instead of liking the content.
Verify your account with a real ID
Just one day after X’s announcement about hiding likes, the company also introduced Real ID verification for X Premium subscribers. The option can be found under the Authentication section of a user’s X Premium settings.
X Premium subscribers who choose to enable ID verification must upload a photo of an official ID and a selfie. The social media platform has partnered with ID verification company Au10tix, which uses biometric data to confirm a user’s identification.
![X Premium ID verification](https://helios-i.mashable.com/imagery/articles/00UooEMqgjOPC7kUg9DJOGI/images-1.fill.size_708x750.v1694801386.png)
With X Premium, subscribers can now verify their Real ID.
Credit: Mashable screenshot
According to X that is so advantages to verify your identity with the company. The platform will show an ID verification label to visitors who click on a user’s blue checkmark, which X says will “increase the trust of other users.” Additionally, X will provide “prioritized support” to users who enable Real ID verification. X also says it will roll out additional benefits in the future, such as an expedited verification review with blue checkmarks. ID-verified users will soon be able to change their profile photo, display name, or username more frequently.
Will any of these features convince users to sign up for X Premium, the company’s struggling subscription service? Honestly, no, probably not. X continues to show that its latest developments are targeting these paying subscribers, but the company has yet to offer a real value proposition for most of its users. Of X’s hundreds of millions of active users, less than a million users have been subscribing to the paid service since it launched about 10 months ago.