You Wanted A Dislike Button, You Will Not Get One

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After testing it out for a few months, Facebook has finally rolled out Reactions to everyone. While most users have rejoiced, some feel there is still something missing: the dislike button. Well, here’s the thing… you will not get one.

Also Read: Facebook Reactions Are Now Available Globally

For years Facebook users have demanded a dislike button. People felt it was a real need, because we simply cannot like everything. In October last year, a poll conducted by YouGov Omnibus found that 38% of Facebook users were expecting a dislike button.

Reactions are now live for everyone, but 38% of Facebook users wanted a dislike button.

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So, when Facebook rolled out Reactions this week, some were disappointed. And as always, they took their rant to Twitter:

https://twitter.com/NyleDiMarco/status/702567072132374528?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

All we wanted was a Dislike Button. #socialmedia #facebook pic.twitter.com/iRD9xT8mho
— Meg Nordmann (@MegNordmann) February 24, 2016

It’s not that users do not appreciate Reactions. It is a definite step in the right direction. But they still wanted to be able to dislike posts.

But here is the thing: it won’t happen.

Geoff Teahan, Facebook’s product design director, explained why in a blogpost on Medium:

[quote]We first needed to consider how many different reactions we should include. This might seem like a pretty straightforward task: Just slap a thumbs down next to the Like button and ship it. It’s not nearly that simple though. People need a much higher degree of sophistication and richness in what choices we provide for their communications. Binary ‘like’ and ‘dislike’ doesn’t properly reflect how we react to the vast array of things we encounter in our real lives.[/quote]

And let’s also remember that Mark Zuckerberg himself had already shut down all hopes for a dislike button back in December 2014.

You wanted a dislike button on Facebook? Mark already told you you wouldn’t get one back in 2014.

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For Facebook, Reactions were already a huge move, finally allowing users to express negative emotions. Certainly not just a small change for the platform. And let’s face it, even if “Yay” didn’t made the final call, we should be happy we now get to “haha”, “wow” but also show we are sad or angry.

So no, a dislike button isn’t coming to Facebook. Let’s start to appreciate what we have.