Since Mark Zuckerberg recently revealed during a Q&A that Facebook is working on the creation of a ‘dislike’ button, people have been buzzing about the much-anticipated addition. However, the premise of the button may be different than you would suspect. In this Weekly Wrap, we will discuss the purpose of this new function and the predictions of its use.
Though previously against the notion of creating an outlet for negativity on the popular social networking site, Zuckerberg recently softened his stance in response to the call from Facebook users for a different way to express emotions beyond the ‘like’ button. Zuckerberg shared in an interview that Facebook sees value in providing an option for users to express empathy and sympathy, but wants to avoid creating an outlet for negative interactions between its 1.5 billion users. According to USA Today, Facebook will likely launch a “sympathize” button designed to express support or solidarity.
The GlobalWebIndex recently made predictions regarding the future use of the ‘dislike’ button based on a study of Facebook actions taken in the past month. While 70 percent of users utilized the like button during the past month, 19 percent of users also unliked brands or pages. Additionally, 11 percent of Facebook users posted a negative comment about a product or brand in the past month. GlobalWebIndex remarked that though negative interactions on Facebook occur less frequently than positive interactions, introducing a quick way to express negative sentiments presents a troublesome concept to the popular social networking site. As a result, GlobalWebIndex predicts the introduction of this new tool will be managed extremely carefully.
What do you think about Facebook’s announcement of a ‘dislike’ button? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
Samantha Peer is an intern at WordWrite Communications. She can be reached at samantha.peer@wordwritepr.com or on Twitter, @sam_peer.
