Facebook After years of requests, controversy and aborted attempts, he tries again, Half is testing a button again downvote. But don’t call it “I don’t like”, The function, currently in the experimental phase, is designed for report comments deemed not very useful And not to express disagreement or contempt. This button, visible only in the comments and not in the posts, is represented by one arrow facing downwards and not from a thumb towardsand will allow users to indicate in anonymous form the comments that in their opinion do not bring value to the conversation. Unlike the button “I like”born in 2009 And become a symbol of digital communication, the downvote will not have public visibility and should not stimulate conflict dynamics. Rather, it will serve as a constructive report, a sort of feedback to help algorithms reward the most relevant contents and moderate superfluous or misleading ones.
What is the Facebook downvote button and what it is for
The desire to be able to say “I don’t like” on Facebook It is almost as old as the “I like” key itself. Introduced in 2009the famous thumb up It immediately became the simplest and most immediate way to interact with various posts and content, but has also shown some of his limits. What to do, for example, in front of the post of a friend who tells the loss of one’s cat? Or in front of a tragic news, like the death of a loved one? Many found themselves uncomfortable in having to put “like” to something that, in reality, raised far more complex emotions. Hence the long debate on the introduction of an opposite option, which however has always avoided Facebook.
The position of the company was clear: in a digital world where emotions are easily amplified, an explicit disapproval button could have become a weapon for trolls, haters and coordinated harassment campaigns. This is demonstrated by the experience of YouTubethat over time He had to make the counting of “dislikes” invisible Just to avoid targeted attacks, especially against smaller or just emerging creators.
The new downvote that Facebook is testing today, however, is different. It is not needed to say “I don’t like” but, much more simply, to report that a comment is not very useful for conversation. No public visibility, no numbers to collect or wave. Only a small tool of social moderation, designed to help distinguish constructive contributions from those irrelevant or harmful. A short caption will appear under the button that clarifies its purpose: “Let us know which comments are not useful. This is anonymous». A way to avoid misunderstandings and to guide the conscious use of this function.
Facebook he had already experienced a similar version in 2018in a test limited to the United States, but has never made it available on a large scale. Also on Messenger, in 2017an emoji with the thumb towards, more to express disagreement during the conversations had been tested than as a sign of moderation. And even Instagramalways owned by Meta, recently tested the downvoing in the comments. In short, the concept is not new. But the sensitivity with which it is proposed today seems different: more oriented towards the quality of the interactions than to the simple expression of a negative opinion.
The problems in introducing the “I don’t like” on Facebook
Over the years, Facebook has always sought new ways to give users a range of varied options to express their feelings on the platform. In the 2016 the “Reactions”that is, the emojis that allow you to go beyond the simple “likes”: love, laugh, surprise, sadness, anger. These additions arise precisely from the awareness that our emotions cannot be condensed in a simple like. The idea of introducing a downvote option fits into this same logic: offering an extra tool to make the interactions more nuanced, but without falling into free negativity.
The story of the “I don’t like”, on the other hand, also had problematic implications. In the 2012for example, scammers have exploited the desire for users to have that button to distribute Adwarethat is, unwanted advertising software. Promising to enable a phantom appetia button on the famous social network, they induced people to Install malicious extensions in their browsers. This too contributed to the prudence of Meta in never wanting to officially launch such a function.
