Thursday, February 8, 2018

Facebook Says It's Not Testing A "Dislike Button", But A "Downvote" Button Is Definitely Out There

Screenshots surfaced on social media today that appear to show Facebook is testing a downvote button.

Tech culture reporter at The Daily Beast, Taylor Lorenz, tweeted out two screenshots that appeared to show the option to downvote available on a comment stream.

Then, more screenshots followed.

In a statement, a Facebook spokesperson told BuzzFeed News it is not testing a dislike button: "We are exploring a feature for people to give us feedback about comments on public page posts. This is running for a small set of people in the US only.”

At least for now, the downvoting option is a short-term test that doesn't actually affect the ranking of a comment in the same way downvoting works on sites such as Reddit.

The test is currently only occurring for a very small amount of Android users and features exclusively on public page posts.

The introduction of a possible downvote button could represent one of the ways the social media giant aims to combat the sharing of fake news, which has been a huge issue since the 2016 presidential election.

But for those of you hoping the changes might see the platform finally introduce a literal "dislike button," well, you're shit outta luck. However, "downvote" is a much softer, more approachable phrasing that could essentially do the same thing.



from BuzzFeed - Tech https://www.buzzfeed.com/bradesposito/downvote-my-heart?utm_term=4ldqpia

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