Facebook Working On A Dislike Button: Mark Zuckerberg

Looks like Facebook is on its way to fulfill a long-standing demand from its large user base. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has revealed that the world’s largest social networking website is planning to introduce a dislike button soon. Facebook is likely to start testing the new feature in the months to come, VentureBeat reports.

“We’ve finally heard you and we’re working on this and we will deliver something that meets the needs of the larger community.”

Zuckerberg revealed his plans for the new dislike button at the latest town hall Q&A session that was held at Facebook’s new headquarters in Menlo Park, California. When asked about the potential of the dislike button to be used as a tool for down-voting people’s opinions and posts, Zuckerberg clarified that the idea behind dislike button is to offer Facebook users a means to express empathy to moments. After all, it’s not just the happy news that people tend to share over social networks these days.

“Not every moment is a good moment. If you share something that’s sad like a refugee crisis that touches you or a family member passes away, it may not be comfortable to like that post … I do think it’s important to give people more options than liking it,” Zuckerberg said.

While the plans are on for the dislike button, Mark also added that adding that simple-looking button is a surprisingly complicated process. Initial tests are set to begin soon, and if those tests go as planned, the feature will be rolled out to a small user base before widespread deployment. At this point, Zuckerberg has not talked about an expected time when we would finally start receiving the option to hit a “dislike” on posts.

Apart from the addition of the dislike button, several other things were discussed at the town hall — including the fact that he is going to be a father soon.

This is the first of the two town halls that Zuckerberg will be holding this week. Later this week, on Saturday, Mark will host Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. India, with its 1.21 billion people, is an important market for Facebook, and the duo are expected to talk social and economic challenges that India faces.

So, do you think Facebook should come up with the new dislike button? And if it does come, would you be using it frequently?