Mark Zuckerberg dislikes the ‘dislike’ button but is seeking a feature to help users express their emotions
Facebook’s chief executive has confirmed the social network has discussed the addition of a dislike button to the site but dropped it as they did not feel it would be "socially valuable".
Zuckerberg doesn't feel the dislike button would be a force of social good
During a Q&A session at Facebook’s headquarters on Thursday, Zuckerberg answered questions submitted to him via his Facebook account.
One attendee asked: “Judging by the success of the Like button, have there been any conversations regarding a Dislike button?”
Zuckerberg responded: “We’re thinking about it, it’s an interesting question. The Like button is very valuable because it is a way for users to quickly express a positive emotion or sentiment when someone puts themselves out there and shares something.
“Some people have asked for a Dislike button because they want to be able to say ‘that thing isn’t good’ - that’s not something we think is good for the world. We’re not going to build that, we don’t think there needs to be a voting mechanism on Facebook on whether posts are good or bad.
“I don’t think that’s socially valuable or good for the community to help people share the important moments of their lives.”
However, Zuckerberg did say that the firm is looking at a way to help users express more appropriate emotions.
“A lot of time people share things on Facebook that are sad moments in their lives or tough social and cultural things, and often, people tell us they don’t feel comfortable pressing ‘Like’ as it is not the appropriate sentiment when someone loses a loved one or is taking about a very difficult issue.”
He concluded: “We’ve had dialogue about the right way to help people easily express a broader range of emotions, to emphasise, or to express surprise or laughter or any of these things. Giving people more ways to do that with more emotions would be powerful but we need to figure out the right way to do it so it acts as a force for good and not to demean users’ posts.”
The entrepreneur said that social media users can instead user the comments feature to express as broad a range of opinions as they desire.
The ‘Dislike’ button has been one of Facebook's most demanded features since the site's inception, Kate Drewett, founder of digital agency Moonfish, previously shared with the Drum why the feature would ruin the social network.
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