Mark Zuckerberg has finally succumbed to the popular demand and Facebook is finally working on introducing a dislike button for expressing empathy and not exactly for dislike and negative gestures.
At Facebook headquarters in an open Q/A session, Zuckerberg said,
“People have asked about the ‘dislike’ button for many years. Today is the day I actually get to say we are working on it.”
People were curious for years whether Facebook will add a ‘dislike’ button along with its ‘like’ button and the answer was always an absolute ‘NO’. Facebook doesn’t want people to disrespect or show hatred or just criticize the things with the ‘dislike’ option.
There is still very little information on how Facebook will implement the dislike button. According to Zuckerberg, CEO Facebook, the mere goal to introduce the option is to make it a tool to “Show empathy”.
Like on sad demise of relative or close one or to show empathy in case of natural disasters.
“That doesn’t seem like the kind of community that we want to create: you don’t want to go through the process of sharing some moment that that was important to you in your day and have someone downvote It.”
Zuckerberg further added.
A mixed response has been observed since the announcement of the future availability of a ‘dislike’ option. In an interview with Quartz, Joseph Klein, a NY city public school social worker said,
“The ‘dislike’ button is going to become yet another tool for exclusion and bullying – Something that is already a huge concern with regard to youth.”
Facebook should look at the broader side of the picture and focus on making its product contributing to the positive online environment as this tool may act as a fuel to the fire.