Facebook will launch a dislike button.
Facebook is getting ready to launch one of its most requested features, a dislike button.
Previously, the social network previously ruled out adding the feature.
However, Mark Zuckerberg announced today that the company has changed their mind and they are already working on it.
‘I think 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,’ Zuckerberg said during a Q&A session at the firms Sunnyvale headquarters.
He admitted the firm had held back on launching the button amid fears it would become similar to Reddit, where users can upvote and downvote posts.
‘That isn’t what we’re here to build in the world,’ Zuckerberg said.
‘We don’t want to turn Facebook into a forum where people are voting up or down on people’s posts.’
‘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 ‘downvote’ it,
‘What they really want is the ability to express empathy. Not every moment is a good moment,’ Zuckerberg 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…I do think it’s important to give people more options than liking it.’
However, Facebook did not say when the feature will be available., but said the company will begin testing with a small number of users ‘soon’.
‘It’s surprisingly complicated to make an interaction that will be simple,’ Zuckerberg said.
Mark Zuckerberg previously admitted the website was working on a dislike button but, at the time he said it was unlikely to be called dislike. Speaking at the company’s offices in California, Mark Zuckerberg said:
‘We need to figure out the right way to do it so [the button] ends up being a force for good, not a force for bad.’
He continued that people could use a button designed to express negative sentiment in the ‘wrong way’, that could be deemed cruel or mean.
However, when such a button will be introduced is not known, and the site has been talking about the feature since 2010.
