December 12, 2014 - Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerburg, speaking at Q&A event in Menlo Park, California, confirmed that the popular social media company considered adding a "dislike" button, but has decided against it.
Zuckerburg explained that having the ability to convey a broad range of emotions in response to "sad" events in Facebook friends' lives with the simple click of a "dislike" button would be "powerful," but could end up being "a force for bad" and a ways to "demean" the posts people are sharing.
Though many Facebook users have requested a "dislike" button, that would allow them to quickly react to a post with something other than agreement or affinity, Zuckerburg cautions that having both a "like" and "dislike" button would create an unnecessary "voting mechanism" on Facebook. "I don’t think that’s socially very valuable or good for the community,” he said.Zuckerburg did acknowledge the request for a "dislike button" saying, "A lot of times people share things on Facebook that are sad moments in their lives. Often people tell us that they don't feel comfortable pressing 'like' because 'like' isn't the appropriate sentiment." He also hinted that Facebook is in the process of creating a function that would invite the expression of emotions sparked by "sad posts," or things that are "bad for the world," without encouraging bullying or negativity on the site.
"One of the things we've thought about for quite a while is what's the right way to make it so people can easily express a broader range of emotions? To empathize," Zuckerburg concluded, "We're thinking about it."
According to Facebook's own figures, about 4.5 billion "likes" are generated daily.
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