Elon Musk adds view counts to Twitter and prompts immediate outrage

(Getty Images for Heidi Klum)

Elon Musk’s Twitter has rolled out a new “view count” on its tweets – and immediately been hit by widespread criticism and mockery.

The new feature allows anyone to see how many times a certain post has been viewed. While that feature was always available to the person who has posted a tweet, it is now visible on every post and to any user.

It remains unclear exactly how the number is calculated. Past Twitter employees had said that the idea had been rejected because it was difficult to decide whether a tweet had actually been seen or simply if a user had scrolled past it.

But Mr Musk said that the new count would allow people to see how “alive” the site is, since the usual metrics do not track much of the engagement with a given post.

“Twitter is rolling out View Count, so you can see how many times a tweet has been seen! This is normal for video,” Mr Musk wrote on Twitter.

“Shows how much more alive Twitter is than it may seem, as over 90 per cent of Twitter users read, but don’t tweet, reply or like, as those are public actions.”

In another post, Mr Musk noted that tweets are read around 100 times more than they are liked.

The view count appears alongside those more public actions, such as retweets and likes. Some criticised its position, since it was added in a way that changed the usual design of the site and force those other counters to be pushed out of their usual place.

In reaction to criticism of the design, Mr Musk posted a poll in which he asked users whether the view count should be moved to a different place within the tweet.

Others suggested that, contrary to Mr Musk’s suggestion that the tool would demonstrate how busy Twitter was, it was actually serving to show how few people were viewing certain tweets.

And yet more complained that the metrics only served to make people feel anxious or upset about the number of views their posts are getting. Some social networks, such as Instagram, have looked to remove metrics from posts in an attempt to remove unnecessary pressure when people are posting.