Facebook 'dislike' button "too complex to introduce, needlessly negative"

PanARMENIAN.Net - Facebook is unlikely to ever introduce a 'dislike' button because its inclusion would be too complex and needlessly negative, according to the firm's former chief technology officer, Digital Spy said.

Bret Taylor, the man who created the 'like' button, told TechRadar that giving users the option to display negative sentiment with a single click could result in "unfortunate consequences".

"[The dislike button] came up a lot. In fact even the language of the word like was something we discussed a lot as well," said Taylor. "But regarding the dislike button, the main reason is that in the context of the social network, the negativity of that button has a lot of unfortunate consequences.

"The reason we launched the button in the first place was that there were a lot of times that people wanted to acknowledge something someone did, but didn't have anything to say. And a lot of comments were one word like 'cool' or 'wow', so the like button let people did that with a single click. It wasn't really just a sentiment of 'like'."

Taylor went on to say that negativity is better expressed using specific words, and pointed out that the option to 'dislike' a post could result in implications for cyber bullying.

"I have the feeling that if there were to be a dislike button... you would end up with these really negative social aspects to it. If you want to dislike something, you should probably write a comment, because there's probably a word for what you want to say," he added.

"I'm not saying the like button isn't flawed - would it be even more complex with a negative sentiment like 'dislike'?"

Previous reports suggest that Facebook once toyed with the idea of adding a 'sympathise' button, but these plans are yet to materialise.