Zuckerberg Dislikes The Idea Of A Facebook “Dislike” Button

“That’s not something that we think is good for the world,” the Facebook CEO said during his second town hall Q&A.

Martin Beck on December 11, 2014

Don’t go looking for a “dislike” button on Facebook; Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he has no interest in giving people the means to be mean. “Some people have asked for a dislike button before,” Zuckerberg said in response to the first question in his second Q&A With Mark session today at Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters. “They want to be able to say that a thing isn’t good and that’s not something that we think is good for the world. “So we’re not going to build that. I don’t think there needs to be a voting mechanism on Facebook whether posts are good or bad. I don’t think that’s socially very valuable or good for the community.” But Zuckerberg did say that Facebook has had internal discussions about giving people something in addition to the like button to express alternative emotions when the thumbs up doesn’t seem appropriate. The death of a loved one, for instance, or the sharing of a troubling news story. “We’ve been thinking about it for quite a while,” he said. “What’s the right way to make it so people can easily express a broader range of emotions, to empathize. Or to express surprise or laughter or any of these things. You can always just comment. But there’s something that’s so simple about the like button. “I think giving people the power to do that in more ways with more emotions would be powerful. But we need to figure out the right way to do it so it ends up being a force for good and not a force for bad and demeaning the posts that people are putting out there.” You can listen to the full town hall meeting here: