Friend's house burnt down? Facebook mulls 'dislike' button for that

Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg said his social network is “considering” the addition of a "dislike" button.

The ad network founder said in a public Q&A session that his engineers are looking at the idea of adding new buttons that users can press to express their feelings about stuff they see.

Answering a question from the floor, the CEO said a dislike button could help users sympathize with those dealing with difficult moments in their lives. He noted that when others share sad news, a “like” button doesn’t seem appropriate.

For example, when someone posted about the loss of a loved one, their friends could “dislike” the status as a way to express sympathy – which still sounds odd, but is way better than hitting "like."

Zuck cautioned, however, that Facebook doesn’t want to implement a voting system where users would be able to hit the dislike button as a way to criticize others.

“Thats not socially very valuable or good for the community,” Zuckerberg said. “The thing I think is valuable is, there are more sentiments people want to express, a lot of times people share moments on facebook that are sad in their lives.”

Don’t hold your breath for a new button any time soon. Zuck noted that there’s nothing immediate coming from Facebook. “We don’t have anything that’s coming soon, but it is an important area of consideration,” he said. ®

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