Tough luck for the grumpy among you
Facebook’s former chief technology officer has said that the chances of the social media giant ever introducing a Dislike button are slim to none.
Bret Taylor, who is responsible for the Like button, has said that the company will probably be wary of the inevitable spread of negativity that would follow such a move.
He told TechRadar: [The dislike button] came up a lot. In fact even the language of the word like was something we discussed a lot as well. But regarding the dislike button, the main reason is that in the context of the social network, the negativity of that button has a lot of unfortunate consequences.
The reason we launched the button in the first place was that there were a lot of times that people wanted to acknowledge something someone did, but didn’t have anything to say. And a lot of comments were one word like ‘cool’ or ‘wow’, so the like button let people did that with a single click. It wasn’t really just a sentiment of ‘like’.
He added: “I have the feeling that if there were to be a dislike button… you would end up with these really negative social aspects to it. If you want to dislike something, you should probably write a comment, because there’s probably a word for what you want to say.
I’m not saying the like button isn’t flawed – would it be even more complex with a negative sentiment like ‘dislike’?
Understandable words – surely the introduction of a Dislike button could be toxic in terms of bullying and harassment?