It is not uncommon for Facebook to try new features and they are all geared to make sure that the experience is better for everyone. They tested reaction emojis and now they are part of the standard arsenal and now they are testing another feature which looks like something from Reddit.
Facebook confirmed to TechCrunch that they are testing a downvote button, which is a feature we have seen and used on Reddit. Apparently the motivation behind the new button is that it was to create a way for people to give a signal to Facebook that a comment is misleading, uncivil or inappropriate.
A downvote button sure sounds like a dislike button, which people have been wanting for years and they clarified that with a statement. “We are not testing a dislike button. We are exploring a feature for people to give us feed back about comments on public page posts. This is running for a small set of people in the US only.”
When a user taps the downvote button, they are presented with three options: Offensive, Misleading and Off Topic. These are used to further clarify why the user doesn’t like the post and makes sure that Facebook has ‘meaningful interactions’ as they described earlier.
This test is being carried on 5% of Android users in the US where the button only appears on public Page posts and apparently there is no plan to expand the test. We are only now wondering when this test will be successful so that the feature is rolled out globally to all users.
