Facebook is testing a ‘downvote’ button

Once clicked, the option will automatically hide the comment from view and ask why you had a problem with it.

Facebook has confirmed the news that it is testing a downvote button. Rather, it can be seen as a convenient tool that users can use to provide feedback about comments made on public posts on its platform.

“We’re looking for big impact ideas that bring people together”, said Mr Cox.

Besides the buttons “like” and “reply, ‘ a handful of users are as well seeing the ‘downvote” button below the comments of Facebook posts.

Facebook has long faced an issue over how best to let people express less-than-positive feelings about people’s posts and comments. Facebook’s downvote feature simply flags content as inappropriate or offensive. The screenshots come from Christina Hudler. Besides, users can only downvote the comments that are posted on public posts of Facebook Pages, and not the ones in group posts or a post from their friends. Not sure what the comment was, but reactions have given Facebook users a source of entertainment.

But the Silicon Valley company did confirm that it is conducting a test of the feature on few Android users.

It is not now known if – or when – the company will expand testing.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has always been against a solitary dislike button.

‘That doesn’t seem like the kind of community we want to create’. To give people more options on how to react to a post, “Haha”, “Mad”, “Sad”, “Love”, and “Wow” were all given.

The patent claims that the third parties are effectively promoting their products and services on the social media platform, and Facebook can make it more engaging to its users on segregating them on the basis of their socio-economic status. Downvoting was popularized on Reddit for crowdsourcedcomment ranking.

The new feature does look similar to Reddit‘s format – and it captured the attention of Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian Sr., who tweeted in response: “Sincerest form of flattery!” But the company failed to do so at the initial stage, as claimed by an early report. If a comment or post receives a high number of downvotes it could potentially reduce the number of people it reaches.