Facebook thinking about 'dislike' function | Hacker News Reader

Facebook thinking about 'dislike' function

bbc.com

26 pointsjakobsbiz19 comments

I keep wondering where this comes from when I see misleading article titles like this one. From what I can see, they ARE NOT going to create a dislike button. The transcript of his answer to this question is:

“You know we’re thinking about it, on the Dislike button. It’s an interesting question, right, because there are two things that it can mean. And we’re considering and talking about doing one and not the other. So the one that we don’t want to do: The Like button is really valuable because it’s a way for you to very quickly express a positive emotion or sentiment when someone puts themselves out there and shares something. And, you know, some people have asked for a Dislike button because they want to be able to say ‘That thing isn’t good’. And that’s not something that we think is good for the world. So we’re not going to build that. I don’t think there needs to be a voting mechanism about whether posts are good or bad. I don’t think that’s socially very valuable or good for the community to help people share the important moments in their lives."

I highly doubt this would ever happen. Any network lives and dies on volume and quality of content and Facebook is a great example of a site that (arguably) has both.

One of the key driving factors behind this is that anyone can feel comfortable sharing something on Facebook. If you're a naturally shy person then there's no need to fear downvoting, the worst that can happens is that no one expresses a positive sentiment. You can make everyone aware of something you're doing or how you're feeling with only the possibility of a positive response. That's fantastic and it's what encourages people to share.

There is an argument that you can improve the quality of what people see by having a "dislike" or "downvote" option, like Reddit, HN or StackOverflow. The big difference is that Facebook is inherently personal. I don't mind the fact that someone might downvote me here or on Reddit but that changes when I'm talking about something incredibly personal to the people that are closest to me as is the case on Facebook.

I can see that they may introduce a way to offer a different sentiment, a dislike where the meaning is "I'm sorry this happened to you" or "It's bad that you feel this way". A way of actively stating you find something to be "bad" or "useless" content is never going to be present on Facebook though. Or at least, I can't see a positive outcome from it.

Facebook doesn't care about bad, they care about boring. Bad won't help their algorithms... Unless it's controversial enough to be interesting.

What? No. Facebook cares about keeping people engaged, and about making itself a part of everyday life. In that sense its okay for them if its not "exciting". It no longer needs to get people's attention, now what it has to do is keep people engaged, and that means having people enjoy it. At least that's my sense, whether they will actually do this or not I have no idea.

“Some people have asked for a dislike button before,” Zuckerberg said in response to the first question in his second Q&A With Mark session today at Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters. “They want to be able to say that a thing isn’t good and that’s not something that we think is good for the world.

“So we’re not going to build that. I don’t think there needs to be a voting mechanism on Facebook whether posts are good or bad. I don’t think that’s socially very valuable or good for the community.”

[1] http://marketingland.com/zuckerberg-dislikes-110958

He didn't say this. He said they're looking at other ways of showing "sentiment." He actually said outright that he doesn't think the "dislike" button will happen because it's "not good for the community."

http://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthof/2014/12/11/mark-zucker...

Hang on, you've brought too much logic to this discussion. This violates the ease of creating clickbait!

Although, as he says, liking something such as the death of a loved one doesn't seem appropriate, introducing a dislike button at this stage would just confuse that further (some people liking the death and others disliking while both are trying to convey the same feeling).

A Dutch article about this matter drew a comparison with a functionality a long-time competitor of Facebook had (Hyves): a 'Respect' button. It's liking without liking it, and doesn't have a negative connotation (which Zuckerberg himself in the article says they don't want)

The title is just wrong, the article clearly states facebook doesn't want a dislike button.

>"Some people have asked for a dislike button because they want to say, 'That thing isn't good.' That's not something that we think is good for the world.

Is it really that big of a deal that they are "THINKING" about a dislike button? Haven't all of us at one time or another "THOUGHT" about a dislike button?

Is this a surprise? Uggh.

This would hurt the ego's of those who spend so much time carefully cultivating their Facebook persona.

That said, they already have an invisible dislike button in "I don't want to see this."

I think a better solution would be to add another axis, rather than give more positions on the like-dislike axis (such as engagingness, interestingness, etc.)

Facebook like doesn't do anything much really. It should either only have upboats and sort things likewise which wouldn't require a dislike button.

They're not going to add it, because they want to always increase, not decrease, the number of people addicted to their ecosystem.

Everyone should just join Ello and sink Facebook, its time has come and gone.

How about 'sympathize'?

Oh god, please no.

You won't be able to dislike Mark Zuckerburg though. Presumably, they'll charge advertisers for the privilege of not being able to be disliked.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com