We at Opus Communication keep an in-depth look into the Social Media World, what new trends are coming up, which social media network is gaining user share etc.
People have asked whether Facebook would make a “Dislike” button for years, and for years Facebook has said that it wouldn’t. It’s kind of obvious why this cycle happens: there’s a natural impulse to want to see a “Dislike” button next to Facebook’s everywhere Like button, but there are also some real problems with that. Facebook doesn’t want people using “Dislike” as a way to harass or disrespect other people, and — more cynically — you can argue that it certainly doesn’t want people Disliking the sponsored posts that companies pay to put in your News Feed.
That all said, Facebook has actually had a change of heart. It’s making a Dislike button — or something like it — and it’s seems that going to head into testing soon. “People have asked about the ‘Dislike’ button for many years … 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,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said today during a public Q&A session, according to CNBC.
There aren’t a lot of details away from that, but Zuckerberg says that Facebook’s target is to apply the button in a way that makes it a tool to “express empathy” — as in, to Dislike a sad moment that a friend shared — than a way to spoil someone. So while Zuckerberg may have called it a “Dislike” button, what Facebook is building may estimated better to a button for sharing compassion when a thumbs up is socially unsuitable.
“We don’t want to turn Facebook into a forum where people are voting up or down on people’s posts,” Zuckerberg said. “That doesn’t seem like the kind of community that we want to create: you don’t want to go through the process of sharing some moment that was important to you in your day and have someone down vote it.”