Chum's house burnt down? Facebook mulls 'DISLIKE' button for that Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg is “considering” the addition of a "dislike" button on his free content ad network. The company's co-founder said during a public Q&A session that his engineers are looking at the idea of adding new buttons that users can press to express their feelings about stuff they see. Answering a question …
The antonym of Tim Bermers Lee is faced with a crucial decision, do we or don't we add the dislike button.
Since there is no gain/loss ratio impact in El Regs up/down voting system, it really has no influence other than personal satisfaction/quick find me a rope tied in a noose situations for the dearest of the dear RegTards.
BUT, and this is a HUGE BUT, as in the American full sized butt, the FB crowd have slightly thinner skin and Mr Zuk's decison to introduce the big bad dislike button could actually result in the rather quick demise of a small, read miniscule, percentage of the world's FB population.
Having recently received more down-votes in one thread than some people receive up-votes in a year I do know what I am talking about... Having frequented El Reg for a few years I have become accustomed to some rather heated debates...Admittedly I do not win them all but as a rather thick skinned Scotsman I can take as much as I can give... ( Objectively the Scots are a bunch of hard bastards)
Regardless, the point that I want to make,, and all sarcasm aside, I believe that that El Zuk actually does have a major decision to make: For some people/business/artists etc a large quantity of down-votes is actually going to have a very large impact in their lives.. the online life has become a very, very personal and even financial offline affair. ( This is different from TripAdvisor in relation to the fact that FB has always been a personal rather than a business thing, although the business side definitely is a vector too)
The web has become a battleground and anonymity has become as shield, The weapons of choice, the ad-hominem and the dislike button.. Today's warriors are far more likely to have keyboard rather than trigger skills. Therein lies a certain poetic abstraction of contemporary vice...
El Zuks role has now become similar to that of a newspaper editor in that he decides which columns should appear and which shouldn't and the consequences of such are actually very "consequential":
Should we shoot the editor or shoot the messenger, never an easy decision....
Given that FB is paid for by ads, a "dislike" button would create more problems for them than it would solve. All it would take is say a mass "dislike" of Uber (if they were/are an advertiser) and it wouldn't matter where those came from.... again, let's say they came from India. Uber would take a financial hit because people who went to their page wouldn't see the comments from India specifically, only the number of "dislikes". I don't seriously see this particular button becoming a reality unless it's NOT offered on the "sponsored" pages or ads which will create another set of headaches for FB.
Yeah, I'm glad they realise they have the balance right already - they're not going to ever introduce like/dislikes as a voting method (on personal posts).
Doing so would completely change the tone of FB into something much darker and more combative - probably closer to the defaults on Reddit.
On El Reg, the votes work, as it's focused on an argument or debate. It's very hard to take things personally, but on FB "dislikes" on photos, etc, could feel very personal.
I reckon it would kill the service pretty quick - people would move to other social networks with a more welcoming feel.
That's a very good point.
What's interesting is how other social networks, especially (relatively) more anonymous ones (like Twitter, say) display almost the exact opposite.
As you point out, you can say something stupid on Facebook (on private posts), and you usually only get praise from the people who agree.
In real life, you get praise from people who agree, and someone will call you out for being a muppet. Usually it stops at one person, with everyone else just saying "yeah, he has a point, man, you were being a muppet".
What seems to happen on other networks, like twitter, or reddit, is that every one who disagrees chimes in with their own retort individually, so rather than getting slapped down once, you get pummelled twenty or thirty times.
I wonder how a balance closer to a real life discussion could be achieved.
"Facebook is exhibitionism without fear of criticism. It monetizes the basic human craving for attention. It is not going to add a thumbs down."
Must...resist...urge to ironically hit down arrow.
Ah, that's better. It soon passes.
Allow it to be enabled by the original poster. That way, random pics of your cats won't be downvoted. While that example is flippant, Khaptain has made a good case for why a generally available button would be bad, but the ability to enable it on certain posts would be useful. And yes, calling it 'Sympathy' also might be an idea
If they did introduce a 'dislike' I'd probably get unfriended when I start disliking all of the baby photos on my news feed. That said I've 'unfollowed' the worst offenders for this. I don't give a shit what little Tabitha did at school today.
I think 'dislike' will probably be seen as too negative for Facebook's happy, positive vibes.
I think I'll just proceed with my plan to use Facebook much less in 2015 and maybe even deactivate it.
Pint: It's the weekend.
If you know someone well enough that they will appreciate your sympathy, and they're in need, give them a call, or at least a personalised message.
A 'dislike' button is just narcism (oh, look, aren't I brave?') as well as being unclear: do you dislike the message, the content, the user...
Facebook = SPAM is all you need to know, but they aren't the most annoying. Right now I think Amazon is still the world champion of in-your-face intrusions. A bit off topic, but consider it a warning of where Facebook would like to go: I stopped shopping at Amazon over 10 years ago because of their high-pressure sales abuses of my interests, but they are STILL doing it. A few days ago I checked a book on Amazon. I had already read it but wanted to check a detail about the English original. Then I received email from Amazon with a list of related books they were hoping to sell me. Remember I have NOT bought anything from Amazon in over a decade, and they are STILL in my face.
Anyway, on the topic of Facebook fake "likes" and fake "friends", the real problem is the oversimplification of messy reality. The world is NOT one-dimensional and binary, no matter how convenient that is for Facebook. (The comment about a "sympathize" button was sort of on the right track.)
So does anyone need an Ello invite? Interesting and promising, though I have doubts about economic models, or rather what appears to be the lack of a viable economic philosophy. In that regard, Facebook is also on trial. We know Microsoft's economic model works with total disregard for the negative qualities of their software...
(Yeah, I know you aren't supposed to mention Microsoft in a negative light. Apparently it elicits negative clicks from Microsoft's pet trolls.)
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
