Facebook is to add a "dislike" button to its social network, founder Mark Zuckerberg has said, as they has been considering the idea of a dislike button for some time.

In a Q+A session held at Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park, California, the 31-year-old said the button would be a way for people to express compassion.

He said Facebook is "very close" to having it ready for user testing.

A "dislike" button has been constantly demanded by some users since the introduction of the now-iconic "like" button in 2009.

"People have asked about the 'dislike' button for many years," Mr Zuckerberg told the audience on Tuesday.

"Perhaps hundreds of people have asked about this, and today is a special day because today is the day that I actually get to say we are working on it, and are very close to shipping a test of it."

Nonetheless he went on to say he did not want it to be a tool with which people could "down vote" others' posts.

Instead, it will be for times when clicking "like" on "sad" posts felt offensive.

Prof Andrea Forte, an expert in social and participatory media at Drexel University in Philadelphia, said users will not abruptly turn on each other's posts.

In an email, she wrote: "They may use a dislike button to express some negative emotions (like frustration with ads popping up in their feeds) but I doubt it will cause them to start wantonly disliking pictures of their friends' babies, dogs, cats and cooking experiments.

"I suspect it will mainly be used to express mild disapproval, or to express solidarity when someone posts about a negative event like a death or a loss."

The impact of adding this feature to Facebook will be great, and it does make a lot of sense to have a dislike button created for sad stories like kidnapping, accidents scenes, insurgence, corruption cases. Rape reports, and other social vices were users often use a like button to indicate that the post has been noted.

Although here in Nigeria, it could still have a negative impact as good posts may suffer a turn-off especially when beefing friends gives a “thumbs down” to an amazing post.

Do you support a dislike button on Facebook?


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It will make a whole lota sense

Yup I do I like it... Its time we know who love and who hate the trash niqs spill

Some ppl sha! Were you dere? it will make sense sha, Seun and co should consider it too by now i would ve disliked ur post like several times

I don't think this is a smart move by Mark. A lot of people will cry against it.