Mashable recently put an article up about Facebook and the idea of a Dislike button. But it quickly reminds us that Facebook puts it money first because it has become a major marketing tool for major and minor brands.
It is something that will be talked about until it is added right next to the Like button. Since Youtube is considered as a social network nowadays, we can talk about why they have both options to like and dislike a video, even comments made on a video. Obviously not as many post videos on Youtube like they post casually on FB, you can voice anything on FB. For the record, Justin Beiber owns five of the top ten most disliked Youtube videos ever with Rebecca Black’s song about Friday being number one with 1.16M dislikes. I guess it is easier to just click on dislike to actually comment on why you actually don’t like it.
We can’t talk about a dislike option on FB without mentioning cyber bullying. I personally don’t think it’s an issue of bullying; more of a fact that it creates a bad feeling, some privacy issues on FB have already created this, probably unintentionally but it still causes people to shy away from the features and increase privacy on their pages. People shouldn’t have to go on FB and feel bad about a person’s status update or whatever. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs talks about acceptance being a need and after the basic needs of survival and security.
Let’s talk about FB being a major marketing tool for businesses again. With the obvious reason; if a major company like Nike post about a new product that’s supposed to be their next big thing and the general perception of that product is negative, what will they do? They might not care, but it still might hurt their sales. Over 5M users like their page by the way, which would be a lot of hate. Now, imagine just a normal user posting an opinion or a picture, the general perception being negative (average user has 130 friends). How would they feel? I suppose it depends on what the post is about, the dislike button could be used for constructive criticism. A group of kids ganging up to dislike another kids post would be seen as cyber bullying and FB don’t want hundreds of cases like this.
FB has a friendly structure however and have done well to push out all that negativity that today’s internet has (keyboard warriors, I’m talking to you guys), we use our real identity on Facebook where we might use an alias somewhere else.
http://mashable.com/2011/10/27/facebook-dislike-gestures/
A dislike button on Facebook would be good, some statuses need a dislike e.g. if someone was upset - friends may want to 'dislike' the status rather than 'liking' it.
ReplyDeleteAlso, it may be beneficial for companies marketing- they can ask consumers opinions on products, ideas etc.
I don't really know to be honest. Like I said, it could be good for certain things, but for younger users it could be detremental and scare them away from FB.
ReplyDeleteI think maybe FB could look at allowing users to choose whether they want it on their page, so at least they have a choice. Like on Youtube, where you post videos and choose to disable comments.
Talking about choice, wouldn't a dislike button allow more opinions? Any of us on FB will know that when we see a post, a video or a picture that many people have commented on or liked, can't we say something other than the positives?
Having a dislike button added could certainly cause people to become more worried about posting comments. I think it could be good for marketing asking people to like or dislike a thought or a product, however the younger generation could be concerned with the idea of a dislike button and be scared away.
ReplyDeleteHaving a dislike button could certainly add more opinion as not everyone will like everything they see on facebook. It will be interesting to see if Facebook add this feature to their website, and see how people would react.
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ReplyDeleteI completely agree with Julian, the use of a dislike button I think should only exclusively be used for Facebook pages for companies and products. The implementation of a dislike button would help in R&D (research and development) for a company's product. Though implementing a dislike button within profiles I envisage will have a negative impact. I forecast that increasing suicides could potentially happen if a dislike button was implemented, due to fragile and self-conscious minds of some. However, due to Facebook's recent purchase of Gowalla, it may not be long till we see a dislike button. http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2131228/Facebook-Acquires-Gowalla-Tests-Negative-Feedback-Feature-Expands-in-NYC
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