After years of requests from its users, Facebook has confirmed it's working on a "dislike" button.
"People
have asked about the dislike button for many years. Today is a special
day, because today is the day I can say we're working on it and shipping
it," Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said during a live
Q&A session Tuesday.
You've long been able to "like" something
on Facebook with the click of a button. But for some content, that
doesn't work so well, Zuckerberg acknowledged.
"Not every moment
is a good moment," he said. "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."
The answer to that problem
might casually be referred to as a dislike button. But Zuckerberg wanted
to avoid creating a system of reddit-style up and down votes.
And
with good reason: Unlike reddit, Facebook's feed is the product of a
sophisticated algorithm, which means it would need to be taught how to
handle the new button. Would a torrent of dislikes serve to bury a post
in your newsfeed? Or elevate it?
Facebook's answer seems to be
"neither." What the service appears to prefer is something that allows
you to express "empathy" with "more options."
This isn't the first
time Zuckerberg has considered the idea. In December, he revealed that
he had been weighing how to implement a dislike button that would be a
"force for good."
This may mean a range of possible responses that offer alternatives to the like option without being its direct opposite.
© 2015 The Washington Post