During a Q&A session today, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed that Facebook is developing a “dislike” button that will allow users to express empathy or sadness, rather than negativity. This is a welcome news for all those users who are requesting the company to add a “dislike” button alongside its famous “like” feature.
Zuckerberg said Facebook did not offer the “dislike” option from the start for fear of a Reddit-like battle of up-voting and down-voting posts. Think of Reddit’s “down-vote brigades” that swoop in to submerge posts that contain ideas the brigade disagrees with. However, there are times when users want to acknowledge a post without “liking” it, particularly if the news being shared is sad.
If you are sharing something that is sad…then it may not feel comfortable to ‘like’ that post.
What they really want is the ability to express empathy. Not every moment is a good moment.
Zuckerberg said the company wants to offer an alternative way to respond when a family member dies, or for events like the ongoing refugee crisis in Europe. He also added that the project has been in the works for a while, but did not offer a specific timetable because developing it has been “surprisingly complicated.”
We will be curious to see how it will be deployed, but it sounds like we will not have to wait long to find out.
In other news, Facebook has been working on bringing a standalone VR app for Android and iOS that would support 360-degree videos.
