Over the years, many people have expressed interest in wanting the ability to down-vote or dislike a post on Facebook. Recently, at Facebook’s latest company Q & A, Mark Zuckerberg revealed that they are experimenting with a new “Dislike” button. This was long awaited news for many of those around the world who have been asking this question for years. He’s never quite said “NO,” he just never said yes, now we all know why.
So what does this all mean? To further elaborate, the “dislike” button, will be a way to show empathy as opposed to “liking” a post. This new feature will be a way for Facebook users to show sympathy or compassion when they see a sad story or if someone’s beloved pet passes away. Now, users won’t feel the need to feel guilty for “liking” a sad post. But of course, this is the actual purpose of the dislike button, as mention by the CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg.
Now, how do you feel this will impact users and companies with Facebook accounts? This is a question I asked myself in which I attempted to see all aspects of the pros and cons. I found a few differences and similarities between everyday users and companies. Ultimately, I feel that this new dislike button, will cause more negativity than actual positivity.
The Good:
The real purpose of this button is to show empathy, as stated above. Yes, this is a new way for users to interact and express more feelings other than “Like” or “agree.” It allows for users to openly express their honest thoughts in regards to issues that they see when they logon to this social networking site. However, will people utilize this for its actual purpose or will this bring about more social media bullying? Users will now be able to “down-vote” anything they want to.
Imagine that you just bought your brand new, fresh-off-the-lot, new car smell, vehicle of your dream that you have worked so hard for, you post it online, and you see dislike votes…does this affect you emotionally? We need to look at it from both perspectives; the everyday users and business users. We all know that we shouldn’t let things that people say affect us, but we see it and we feel it. So, in this scenario, we have people down-voting your post of a brand new car you just purchased. As an everyday user of Facebook, this might make you feel like you made a bad purchase or that it’s not as important as you thought it was.
Now, from the perspective of the company, actions like this will affect their image. The last thing they need is for their brand to be seen in a negative light, and this is exactly what down-votes causes. Its human nature for some of us to take others opinions and thoughts into consideration. YouTube, Facebook, Google, to everything in between, is a place to share our opinions and write reviews, now this down-vote button, makes it easier to quickly see how many people disagree with a product, story, or any post. So if a post is garnering a lot of negativity, then that gives people a bad perception of who they are.
Furthermore, some might argue that this is a good thing because it will allow for feedback or “test marketing.” This is true, but when creating a product/service, you must understand that you cannot satisfy everyone. Facebook has millions of users, so is it effective to base the future creation of products/services based on a big market that could possibly not be in your target market? Probably not.
Also, we must consider that when people, in general, see down-votes and feel like people don’t like what they’re posting, will they then continue to utilize Facebook and post as much as they used to? Or, will they be more cautious about the things that they consider sharing? The latter situation might me higher likely to occur.
Overall, the possible launch of a Dislike Button might end-up causing more social harm in the aspect of one’s image and feelings. Yet, this new announcement from Facebook definitely helped them create a buzz to stay top-of-mind for quite some time! Finally, these are my thoughts and opinions of this long-awaited announcement. I’d like to hear what you think.