Critics Pounce on Facebook’s ‘Dislike’ Button

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Concerns about Facebook’s upcoming “dislike” button started to emerge within 24 hours of the company announcing that the feature was in the works.

Facebook Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg made the announcement during a question-and-answer session Tuesday, NBC News reports:

“People have asked about the ‘dislike’ button for many years. … Today is the day that I actually get to say we are working on it.”

Not everyone considers the announcement to be good news, however.

As Forbes tech writer Tony Bradley put it Wednesday, “adding a “Dislike” button or equivalent will just pour gasoline on the fire of pointless Facebook drama or possibly lead to some sort of emoji-like proliferation of potential responses.”

A Quartz headline declared it “is going to be a disaster.” The corresponding article quoted New York public school social worker Joseph Klein, who told the publication:

“The dislike button is going to become yet another tool for exclusion and bullying — something that is already a huge concern with regard to youth.”

Meanwhile, until the button arrives, CNN Money has compiled a list of 12 lesser-known Facebook features to explore on the social media site. Highlights include:

  • News Feed preferences introduced earlier this summer allow you to specify which friends’ and Facebook pages’ updates you see first.
  • The auto-play video feature — which can use more data than you might have wanted and increase the chances of you seeing something you might not have wanted to see — can be turned off.
  • You can bookmark posts to read or watch later.

To view the full list of features click on the CNN link above.

Do you think a Facebook “dislike” button is a good idea or a bad idea? Let us know what you think below or on our Facebook page.

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