Facebook Will Launch An Empathy Button Instead Of Dislike Button

Facebook to launch an empathy button to compensate for a dislike button. A strict 'dislike' button would be a bad thing for brands.

Earlier in September, a town hall question and answer session was conducted at Facebook Inc.’s headquartered situated in Menlo Park where the chief executive officer of the company, Mr. Mark Zuckerberg made an announcement that would completely transform the way people use the social media platform. The company is reportedly working on a “dislike” button.

According to Mr. Zuckerberg, ““People have asked about the dislike button for many years.” He further added, “We’ve finally heard you and we’re working on this and we will deliver something that meets the needs of the larger community.”

After this announcement, there was a lot of havoc where Facebook users were notified that it will not be exactly a dislike button but there will be an empathy button. So in case there is some bad news regarding a life event on your News Feed then you can empathize with your friends like deaths, separations, natural disasters etc. so now it has been confirmed by the social media giant to Techcrunch that they have initiated the testing process where the company is evaluating a “Reaction”. Therefore, the idea behind the six emoji is to depict a range of emotions that are more expressive than a thumb.

Chris Cox, the chief product officer at Facebook, mentioned that the feature of dislike button seeks to cater to a broader perspective. The company conducted a thorough study where they evaluated the reactions and comments that are usually observed on the social platform and then worked towards devising an experience that was not only elegant but also fun at the same time.

The reason behind not coming up with a dislike button is relatively simple. If they launched a dislike button then certain brands might get affected since users will get the liberty to sham them publicly.

Currently the emotions will be expressed through the emojis. For instance, “like, love, haha, yay, wow, sad, and angry.” They can be deployed on the updates made by friends or on various Pages. So you be able to express more if Facebook decides to glorify this experience. According to Mr. Adam Mossero, who is the director of Products at Facebook stated that the reactions are likely to get tested in only two regions, which are Ireland and Spain, since their friend circles do not span far and wide beyond the geographical boundaries.

This initiative is likely to become another benchmark for Facebook products. The company is taking its recent initiatives seriously.