On Tuesday, September 15, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, confirmed during a Q&A session for the company, that Facebook is now in the process of creating and implementing a "Dislike" button after countless requests from users.
During the session, Zuckerberg said that people were requesting a dislike button for years and now after the company as a whole voted against it time and time again, the time has finally come and the users have won.
He stated, "Today is a special day because today is the day I can say we’re working on it and shipping it."
Other popular social media sites/applications with dislike buttons include Reddit and Tinder, both of which you can either approve of a posting or someone’s looks, or choose to dislike or pass. Before this announcement, Zuckerberg has publicly displayed his negative feelings about having a dislike button by saying, “That isn’t what we’re here to build in the world.”
But why the sudden change of heart Mr. Z?
He said that the “dislike" button would be used for sad posts such as deaths, crises and other negative everyday life situations faced by its account users.
This very much concerns me.
In a day and age where people are free to express opinions (some of which I agree and disagree with) on social media, this dislike button greatly saddens me. I believe that when we put a place to dislike, we feel less inclined to state our real, true opinions and be our real, true selves.
I personally wonder how it would be if every opinion post/article I ever wrote for The Rotunda had a like or dislike button. If the Rotunda did utilize a like or dislike button then I would probably be less inclined to write my opinion and publish it, which is sad.
A professor once told me that opinions can help people and can make a difference. Though I am still waiting for the day someone is greatly influenced by one of my sad rants against the on goings of pop culture and social media, I am still grateful that someone cannot just push a dislike button on me and bring me down every time I try to express myself.
As for the “deaths, crises and other negative everyday life situations” that were a part of Zuckerberg’s reasoning, I would hope that any normal human being would have enough sense to believe those things are already sad and a dislike button does not need to reinforce that sadness.
In my opinion, a dislike button will only lead to negativity via social media and we sure as anything, do not need more of that.
Another thing Zuckerberg said was, "What they really want is the ability to express empathy. Not every moment is a good moment."
Obviously people understand that and I would rather have someone comment or send their personal condolences to me when something bad happens, rather than just hit a dislike button and keep scrolling down their timeline.
This dislike button just seems to me as another way that people can hide behind their computer screens. If I trusted the world to only use it for the things Zuckerberg is making for, I would probably not write this, but I do not and that is why I “dislike.”
