News that Facebook is adding an alternative to its "like" option has been met with thumbs up all around. The social media giant said that a new feedback button soon will be launched in response to collective angst over how to respond to life's tragedies.
We all know how odd, callous or just plain wrong it feels to respond to posts about earthquakes, a cancer diagnosis or a beautiful child washed up on a beach with a "like."
But the new option won't fix what's broken.
First, despite what you're hearing or reading, it's likely not going to be a "dislike" button. In a recent public forum, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said a "dislike" button has long been the most requested feature from Facebook users, all 1.5 billion of them, according to statistics aggregator Statista. But that's not what they're building.
The option, he said, will be more of an "empathy" response.
"We didn't want to just build a 'dislike' button," Zuckerberg is quoted as saying, "because we don't want to turn Facebook into a forum where people are voting up or down on people's posts. That doesn't seem like the kind of community we want to create.
"People aren't looking for an ability to downvote other people's posts."
I'm sorry. What?