The question of whether to add a “dislike” button just won’t go away for Facebook, in part because the company hasn’t aggressively shot the idea down. This week, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg closed the book on the issue by saying outright that Facebook won’t create a “dislike” button. However, he went on to say that Facebook is considering other ways to help user express emotions other than “like.” Could that mean buttons similar to “dislike” down the road?
In his “Q&A with Mark,” Zuckerberg noted that people sometimes read posts that are sad or cover sensitive topics and would like to acknowledge them with something other than a “like” button. He says Facebook is mulling ways to help users with that, but didn’t get specific. In any event, Zuckerberg is clearly focused on helping people express positive opinions.
Some advertisers fear a “dislike” button; the popular opinion is that a large numbers of dislikes could affect sales. That’s an understandable worry, considering the number of “likes” that popular posts often rack up. Now imagine the impact of the same number of dislikes appearing on posts related to products or businesses. Users have also expressed concern that a “dislike” button could be used as a tool for bullying among teenagers.
Maybe reducing all conversations to buttons and emoticons isn’t necessary. As Zuckerberg pointed out, there’s already a good tool for expressing your opinion in Facebook: the comment feature.
Joshua Gulick
Josh cut his teeth (and hands) on his first PC upgrade in 2000 and was instantly hooked on all things tech. He took a degree in English and tech writing with him to
Computer Power User Magazine and spent years reviewing high-end workstations and gaming systems, processors, motherboards, memory and video cards. His enthusiasm for PC hardware also made him a natural fit for covering the burgeoning modding community, and he wrote
CPU’s “Mad Reader Mod” cover stories from the series’ inception until becoming the publication editor for
Smart Computing Magazine. A few years ago, he returned to his first love, reviewing smoking-hot PCs and components, for
HotHardware. When he’s not agonizing over benchmark scores, Josh is either running (very slowly) or spending time with family.
