For years, users of the world's largest social network have been asking for a basic way to express their feelings: the Dislike button. Facebook's leadership gave countless explanations to justify its absence, but that script has finally run out. Users want an alternative to the classic Like button as a means of communication, and now Mark Zuckerberg himself has confirmed that the Dislike button is on its way.
Facebook is undoubtedly a place to meet new people... and lose others along the way. The Like button has worked well as a way to express approval for content or opinions we agree with, but when a disagreement arises, many people take it to the comments section, and that's when everything falls apart. The "unfriend" and blocking are common, and they are effective at establishing a definitive break, but the average user takes that route because, essentially, they have no alternatives. A simple click on a theoretical Dislike button might have been enough, but Facebook never considered enabling that option... until now.
Zuckerberg Confirms the Dislike Button
In his latest Q&A session, Mark Zuckerberg confirmed that Facebook engineers are working (apparently for some time) on the official and definitive implementation of the Dislike button. In the past, we've come across malware and adware variants trying to exploit the void, but this announcement leaves no room for error. Zuckerberg explained that he never intended to create a system similar to Reddit with its famous upvotes and downvotes, but he admitted that they will activate something similar, in a different framework. According to Facebook's number one, what users want is to express empathy, and to note that not all moments are actually "good" moments.
The Challenge Ahead
How? When? We don't know yet. And from a certain point of view, this will be a giant challenge for Facebook. The arrival of the Dislike button will have to be planned very carefully, not because there's a major technical issue, but because of our own nature. Words like "trolling" and "cyber-bullying" are already common, as is the behavior associated with each. The most logical thing would be for Facebook to borrow the same trick from Reddit's manual and make the "Dislikes" anonymous, but we'll have to wait to find out.
