Facebook has shied away from introducing a dislike button for more than a decade. The prime reason behind it was an open secret. Facebook didn’t want rampant negativity spread across their addictive social media website since it will reduce the user’s tendency to access it again and again. The company finally caved in to the demands of the users and Mark Zuckerberg stated for the first time that Facebook was working on it.
During a Tuesday Q&A session with at the Town Hall near his Menlo Park Headquarters of Facebook, he was asked a direct question by a user regarding additional buttons on Facebook like “interested”, “dislike” or even “I’m sorry”. Zuckerberg must have made up his mind before and he promptly said that he has finally understood the demand for such a button cannot be suppressed anymore and he was currently working on it.
Zuckerberg is right in saying that not everyday is a good day and people got to have the ability to express all of their feelings about a particular topic. If one can’t express all their negative feelings en mass in the form of a dislike button, many sentiments won’t be conveyed to the various pages and users. This is actually beneficial in understanding the human behaviour regarding products, services and other general ideas.
While it will be beneficial for the organizations to collect meta data, we are unsure how the users themselves will respond to it. Will it cast an irrevocable negative aura at Facebook usage or propel its fame even further? It will also depend on the kind of experience that Facebook plans for us. Maybe it won’t be a straightforward dislike button at all. Mark is right to say that it is surprisingly difficult to come up with something like that we are unsure how people will respond to it.
Nevertheless, one thing I can say for sure. Be prepared for some real fireworks on your wall once this button goes live!!