Dislike button on the way

Facebook is to add a “dislike” button to its social network, founder Mark Zuckerberg has said.

Since the “like” button debuted in 2009, Facebook users have been asking for its counterpart. Mid-September Zuckerberg announced in a live streamed town hall Q&A that the button would be a way for people to express empathy.

“People have asked about the ‘dislike’ button for many years, and probably hundreds of people have asked about this, and today is a special day because today is the day that I actually get to say we are working on it, and are very close to shipping a test of it,” he said. “Not every moment is a good moment if you share something that’s sad like a refugee crisis that touches you or a family member passes away, it may not be comfortable to ‘like’ that post…I do think it’s important to give people more options than liking it.”

However Zuckerberg  went on to say he did not want it to be a mechanism with which people could “down vote” others’ posts.

Instead, it will be for times when clicking “like” on “sad” posts felt insensitive.

He said Facebook was “very close” to having it ready for user testing.

 

[Source: Buzzfeed, BBC]