Facebook has long faced calls for a Dislike button on posts, users arguing that they may want to express support in response to bad news, and Liking a post feels like the wrong way to do it. After a great deal of testing, the company has today announced that it is supplementing the Like button with five additional one-touch responses – but Dislike isn’t one of them …
The six ‘reactions’ available for you to respond to a post are now Like, Love, Haha, Wow, Sad or Angry. They apply across all platforms.
We’ve been listening to people and know that there should be more ways to easily and quickly express how something you see in News Feed makes you feel. That’s why today we are launching Reactions, an extension of the Like button, to give you more ways to share your reaction to a post in a quick and easy way.
To add a reaction, hold down the Like button on mobile or hover over the Like button on desktop to see the reaction image options, then tap [the one you want].
Facebook had previously argued against a Dislike button, fearing that it would facilitate cyber-bullying.
The company has introduced a number of new features to its iOS app recently, including Periscope-like video broadcasting and 3D Touch enhancements.
Is Facebook right to skip a Dislike option? Take our fun poll to let us know …
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
These options are better than a mere “dislike” which can be somewhat vague and indeed be a cyber-bullying tool. Now if the app would stop cyber-bullying my iPhone.
Agreed. Those “so and so is live” notifications are annoying. Seems like yesterday I had an option to turn those notifications off on an per “channel” basis, but not today? Or perhaps if they are no longer live you can’t turn it off
“We’ve been listening to people” – what a joke. Let me check the release notes for mention of this product enhancement…
We have been able to express your disapproval of a ‘reply’ with the “X” (Hide). And you can express your disdain for a particular poster by ‘Blocking’ them or “Seeing Less Posts like this”. Neither involves bullying and simply insulate you from them. If however, you want to flag them with a dislike to publicly shame them … well, that, itself, would be bullying now, wouldn’t it?
The thing we all need to remember about the “Dislike” button is that the bullies will use it more hurtfully than those of us who might think shaming a bully might convince them to change their behaviour. It will not because they have anonymity and if they also happen to be psychopathological or Sociopathological, they really don’t care what you think. Their bid thrill is inducing a reaction. So ‘Hiding’ or ‘Blocking’ them is probably the best response because it doesn’t give them ANY feedback and that is what they crave the most.
When I “Block” or “Hide” comments I like to imagine that I am sending them back into their cave, never to be heard from again. The downside is that you risk falling into “Bubble-Think” if you isolate yourself from differing opinions, so I try to use those options very carefully. But after I have “Hidden” 8 or 10 comments from an individual I usually just block them for my own sanity and outlook.
“the bullies will use it more hurtfully than…”
Honestly the thing I can’t believe is that people are so starved for attention that they would add people to their friends (or otherwise open up their posts to be seen by strangers) who hate them enough to be cyber-bullying them. If anyone even once posted something mean-spirited on my Facebook their dumb ass would never see one of my posts again. Same goes for anyone who outed themselves as a Tea-partier. Goodbye, I have no time for idiots.
So the bullying line never really rang true. Anyone being bullied on facebook needs to go set up their privacy settings correctly.
That said, I don’t really care what buttons Facebook has. Asking for a dislike button for use when responding to bad news is basically saying “My friend’s grandpa died, and yet I can’t be bothered to write “Sorry Jack – I’m here for you” – I just want to click a button to stamp it with the name of an emotion in a single click without thinking.
Interesting aside about Facebook. I can honestly say I don’t really care what buttons they put. I don’t use it. OK, you got me. If you check you’ll find I am logging in here with my FB account. But that’s all I use it for. I don’t post. I have no personal information. For a while I even had a fake name. (Despite all of FB’s statements about how they were requiring real IDs, it was laughably easy to circumnavigate.) I don’t check my page. I route anything from FB to the Junk folder. It’s a tool I use to log into other sites, and nothing more. My wife is on it and uses it to keep in touch with family and friends. But then she’s always complaining about how this person is sending so much political crap, and that person is flooding everyone with religious stuff. I just don’t see the appeal. I use other social sites, but between junk I don’t want to wade through and the bullying mentioned by others and the battery gobbling App, I just don’t bother with FaceBook.
Sorry /OT
I just looked and I don’t see this new stuff on the Facebook app on my iPad or iPhone. So guess it is not on all platforms as they claim.
It appeared when I restarted the app.
Yea it finally came up on mine. I wonder if it was like some their other stuff it was a rollout and just hadent hit all the CDNs when I tried.
This news is a little old — i have been using these for about a month or more on both desktop and iphone
“After a great deal of testing, the company has today announced …” You were one of those selected to test it.
really?
me and all my family and friends and a lot of people in japan… maybe it was rolled out earlier over here :-)
It does not work on any of my Apple product that are all at last version of everything. Why me ?
Try restarting the apps.
I tried that and it those not work.