Zuckerberg said it’s surprisingly complicated to create an interactive button like the “dislike” feature, but “we’re gonna be ready to test soon”. “Probably hundreds of people have asked about this”, Zuckerberg said. Many users have asked for this button for a long time, but Facebook declined to give this option in fear of upvoting and downvoting by users. Zuckerberg has said several times in the past that he has avoided the “Dislike” button because it could be used for voting down posts.
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Facebook’s launch of what is being described as a “dislike button” could be a “game-changer for the media”, according to one expert. Depending on how that goes, that idea will be rolled out more broadly. “Today is the day that I actually get to say we are working on it”, Zuckerberg said. He stated and example that in case of a tragic new event that is circulated on Facebook, people would want to express empathy. The request to add this button, which the social networking giant plans to begin testing soon, was denied by Zuckerberg and other officials of Facebook in the past. It’ll instead be more of an “empathy” button, giving users a quick and simple way to react to a post but not say that they like it, as Tech Crunch reports. The button might not be an actual “Dislike”, but it will address something important for Facebook subscribers.
This came after Germany Justice Minister Heiko Maas called on Facebook to improve “effectiveness and transparency of your community standards” as more people posted negative things about refugees coming to Europe.
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Late in 2014, at another town hall event, Zuckerberg said he was concerned about the toxicity that a dislike button could spread on the social network. While previously we’ve had to assume that if our post didn’t receive a certain number of “likes” then our post had no value, now we’ll know without question if our post was “disliked”. The new feature is already in development and Facebook is “very close” to launching it in a restricted test mode.
