Facebook ‘dislike’ button is coming, Mark Zuckerberg says

The company is developing a way for people to indicate feelings of sadness or sympathy about Facebook posts, CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed during a Q&A session Tuesday. Having the ability to vote down the thoughts and uploaded memories of others would chip away at the Like-friendly environment that Facebook has build over the years.

For years, people have called for more ways to express themselves on timeline posts besides the now-iconic thumbs up “like” button. “So I do think it’s important to give people more options than “like”.

Instead, the new feature will allow people to “express empathy”. Knowing that I don’t like spicy food – or maybe do not “empathise” with it – may be as useful as knowing about my enthusiasm for it. Will you like this new Facebook?

After the like button, what about a dislike one? Questions during the event came in via Facebook posts. “If some feelings get hurt, then so be it and just grow up”. “Some people have asked for a dislike button because they want to say, ‘That thing isn’t good.’ And that’s not something that we think is good for the world”.

“The choice of “like” as a primary signal in the world’s biggest social network has substantive political consequences”, sociologist Zeynep Tufekci wrote in an open letter to Facebook’s product team posted in August on Medium.

“We’re about to enter the busiest time of the election season. Now add in dislikes and you have a mess”. They meant people were listening. But a dislike button could also be disconcerting to marketers, who prefer their messages to be surrounded by happy emotions. “They’re moving toward more of a focus on content delivery”.

Zuckerberg clearly has such concerns in mind. Still, speculation has run rampant, with opinion divided on whether offering any sort of alternative to Facebook’s single, unambiguously positive button option would both make the site more negative for users, as well as scare off brands from advertising across the social network. “We’ve finally heard you and we’re working on this and we will deliver something that meets the needs of the larger community”. The new button will be closer to a sign of empathy than a sign of disagreement.

Facebook declined to comment on when the button will be introduced.

While it’s been suggested for quite some time, did we ever really want to “Dislike” something on Facebook or did you just prefer it removed from your line of sight?