Like It Or Not, Facebook Has No Plans To Add A Dislike Button

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
Mark Zuckerberg has officially given the thumbs-down to adding a dislike button to Facebook, effectively putting an end to speculation that users of the social network would be able to express their dislike for their friends’ posts.
According to Yahoo News tech columnist Alyssa Bereznak, the rumors that Facebook was considering adding the long sought-after dislike button came during a video Q&A session involving Zuckerberg. During the town hall-style event, a University of California-Davis law student asked if the company was considering adding the feature.
Zuckerberg said that they were “thinking about it,” before clarifying that he really was not in favor of the idea. “Some people have asked for a dislike button because they want to be able to say, ‘That thing isn’t good,’ ” he said. “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 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,” he added. However, he did state that he was open to a system for expressing emotions other than positivity, including surprise, sadness or empathy, said Deborah Hastings of the New York Daily News.
“One of the things we’ve had some dialogue about internally…is, what’s the right way for people to quickly be able to express a broader range of emotions?” Zuckerberg explained. “I think giving people the power to do that in more ways with more emotions would be powerful. But we need to figure out the right way to do it, so it ends up being a force for good and not a force for bad. We don’t have anything that’s coming soon.”
One of the potential drawbacks to adding an actual dislike button, analysts told the AFP news agency, is the possibility that members could use it on marketing messages, meaning that the feature could cause Facebook to alienate its advertisers. Zuckerberg also noted that people were free to express themselves by commenting.
Richi Jennings of Computerworld’s IT Blogwatch column said that Zuckerberg’s comments indicate that he wanted “to brush off user suggestions and complaints,” and that it was becoming “increasingly clear that Facebook is just about making money out of you (not that we’re surprised)… With ‘friends’ like Facebook, who the heck needs enemies?”
Facebook did roll out a new feature last week that allows users to go a business’s profile page and perform a variety of tasks, including using an app, going to their external website, book reservations or sign up for a subscription service by clicking on a single button, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The social media service is calling them “call-to-action” buttons, and says that they will be located to the left of a page’s Like button. The buttons provide “new ways for people to interact with businesses,” Facebook added, and include book now, contact us, use app, play game, shop now, sign up and watch video. They will begin appearing on pages in the US over the next few weeks, according to the Journal, and will launch globally next year.
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