The move has long been anticipated – and demanded by users – but the social network says it is not 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,” the company said in a statement.
When the downvote button is clicked, the selected comment is hidden. Users can then decide whether to flag a post as ‘offensive’, ‘misleading’ or ‘off-topic’. Previously, Facebook’s creator Mark Zuckerberg has ruled out adding a dislike button to the social media giant’s site, claiming that would not help the kind of online community the company is trying to create.
Martin Garner, a tech analyst at CCS Insight, said the button could be a part of Facebook’s strategy to resist labelling itself a publisher.
“It has become very clear that Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t want Facebook to have the responsibility of identifying what is offensive or misleading – and what is not – because that would put him into the position of being a publisher rather than a platform,” said Garner.
