thumb, will soon be accompanied by an alternative: a way to "dislike"
a post.
On Tuesday, Mark Zuckerberg, the company's co-founder and chief
executive, said that Facebook was "very close to shipping a test" of a
dislike button. He suggested that the new button would probably be
more nuanced than a simple thumbs-down option. His comments
nevertheless raised the possibility that Facebook, the world's largest
forum for self-expression, could soon become a less friendly place.
"You don't want to go through the process of sharing some moment that
was important to you during your day and have someone down-vote it,"
Mr. Zuckerberg said as he announced the project during a
town-hall-style discussion with users at the company's Silicon Valley
headquarters.
But Facebook users — there are now 1.5 billion, the company says —
have long requested a way to express negative emotions or empathy with
something sad or tragic posted on the social network, he said.
"Not every moment is a good moment, and if you are sharing something
that is sad, whether it's something in current events, like the
refugees crisis that touches you, or if a family member passed away,
then it may not feel comfortable to like that post," Mr. Zuckerberg
said. "So I do think it's important to give people more options than
just like."
The prospect of a new dislike button has been polarizing among Facebook users.
"There is already enough hate on Facebook and social media," Atiq
Haneef of Pakistan commented on an earlier version of this article on
the Facebook page of The New York Times. "I'm gonna dislike this
dislike button!"
But Roger Anderson of Atlanta, a former government microbiologist,
wrote, "What's wrong with a dislike button? Let's have varying
opinions on Facebook posts! If some feelings get hurt, then so be it
and just grow up."
Debra Aho Williamson, a social media analyst at the research firm
eMarketer, said that it was difficult to imagine a single button that
could convey the complex range of negative emotions someone might want
to express in response to a Facebook post.
While there is already plenty of negativity in the comments on
Facebook posts, making it easy to dislike something with the flick of
a finger could make the social network a meaner, uglier place.
"We're about to enter the busiest time of the election season. Good
Lord — 'dislike' on that would be a huge flaming mess," Ms. Williamson
said.
As for Facebook's business — selling ads — a dislike button could cut
both ways. It could increase the level of engagement that people have
with posts, and therefore the number of ads they eventually see. But a
dislike button could also be disconcerting to marketers, who prefer
their messages to be surrounded by happy emotions.
"Over all, it's probably a good thing to enable people to express
feelings and emotions that they can't express through a like button,"
Ms. Williamson said. "But Facebook needs to be careful as to how they
enable that capability with regard to advertising and all the
potentially inflammatory discussions that could occur online."
Mr. Zuckerberg clearly has such concerns in mind. He stressed that
Facebook would test the new button before introducing it broadly, and
refine it based on user feedback. "Hopefully we'll deliver something
that meets the needs of our community," he said.
Facebook's decision to experiment with a new button came after much
deliberation. In December, Mr. Zuckerberg told a similar meeting of
users that the company had been working on the idea but had not
figured out how to add a dislike button "so that it ends up being a
force for good and not a force for bad."
Gina Bianchini, chief executive of Mightybell, which builds and runs
social networks for businesses, said that Facebook had been smart
about making it easier for users to express more nuanced feelings, and
that she expected the new button would be a positive addition to
conversation on the social network.
"All social networks are getting more sophisticated about this," Ms.
Bianchini said. "People want to express more through a button. It's so
much easier to press a button than typing a lot."
No comments:
Post a Comment