This is some really stupid decision! Even more stupid than adding the stickers! All that we've seen going wrong here and over at reddit with the community-destroying negative voting is coming to Facebook - let the flame wars begin! Trolls are gonna love it, too! Instead, what they had to do is copy Slack's emoji reactions - the most brilliant thing they could've done to improve feedback. Or at least copy BuzzFeed's original reaction approach for the lazy majority.

It looks like that's what they are gonna do, which makes me happy: https://vimeo.com/139401042

So, I was right, I guess: http://techcrunch.com/2015/09/17/emoji-button/

> Instead, it will be for times when clicking "like" on "sad" posts felt insensitive.

Of course, the most important part was the last sentence of the article.

Calling it the "hug" button would work better than "dislike".

Zuckerberg knows that the dislike button would many people stop from posting their trash. Perhaps the will just rename the like button to whatever fits the context best based on the posted event (probably needs to be categorized).

Having opposites (Like/Dislike, Up/Down) is natural and Facebook tried to create behaviour which is not natural. I think this is a great proof that Businesses have to adapt to the users and not the other way around.

I disagree, dichotomies aren't always the natural way to do things. Facebook was never meant to be a discussion space like Reddit, it's an echo chamber where you can share things with people who will only acknowledge when they enjoy it. Some people might dislike that facet, but it's something unique that sites like Facebook and Twitter always provided. It makes people feel good about themselves.

Few people post a news article to facebook because they want a healthy debate on it, they do it because they want to get general agreement from their friends and family. The people who go on and start arguments in the comments are pretty universally hated in my experience. Nobody likes scrolling through the news feed and seeing drama drama drama.

Like/dislike is not structured feedback. The most awkward situation is when people "like" some tragic article. In this case, Reddit and HN do better - you up/down vote, you don't "like". Instead, they should've added multiple "reactions". Like/dislike, agree/disagree, boost up/down, etc. Of course, the equivalent of "upvoting" possibly is "sharing", but often you don't want to pollute your timeline, just to boost the visibility. I think Facebook is making things worse, not better.

You would an additional feature to ask the poster for consent before the hug button becomes enabled though, I am not if that complexity can be easily designed.

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