5 Reasons Twitter's New Heart Symbol Is A Terrible Idea

5. Doesn't Work With Public-Facing Folder

Twitter has always made the "favourites" folders of its users public. Any user can see another's favourites via a link on their profile screen. That link has now been replaced by a "likes" folder of tweets that have been marked with a heart. This public-facing nature of the "likes" feature makes its personal touch seem rather out of place. If likes truly are to be a personal expression, then it would make sense for them to be hidden, rather than publicly trumpeted via the profile page. In its blog promoting the change from stars to hearts, Twitter made plenty of noise about the personal and emotional dimensions of the heart symbol. The fact that these emotional statements from users are to be made public may make users considerably less likely to use them. The disconnect between Twitter's desire to make "likes" something personal and their positioning as public accessible is a major problem with the change.