Facebook working on a ‘dislike’ button

Despite what our Facebook feeds might make it seem, life isn’t all delicious food, European jaunts and beautiful people exercising in the sun.

Which is why Facebook is now, after years of speculation and requests, working on options besides the ‘‘like’’ button for users to weigh in on their friends’ postings – including a potential ‘‘dislike’’ button.

During a public Q&A session, the company’s co-founder and chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook would soon start testing alternatives to the ‘‘like’’ button.

‘‘People have asked about the dislike button for many years,’’ Zuckerberg said. ‘‘We’ve finally heard you and we’re working on this and we will deliver something that meets the needs of the larger community.’’

The ‘‘like’’ feature was originally conceived in 2007 as an ‘‘awesome’’ button, before rolling out to users in 2009 as ‘‘an easy way to tell friends that you like what they’re sharing on Facebook with one easy click’’. Facebook has been hesitant on rolling out a ‘‘dislike button’’, because negativity or a system where users can up-vote or down-vote in the style of Reddit ‘‘isn’t what we’re here to build in the world’’.

‘‘That doesn’t seem like the kind of community that we want to create: You don’t want to go through the process of sharing some moment that was important to you in your day and have someone ‘down-vote’ it,’’ Zuckerberg said.

Yet, using the example of the migrant crisis in Syria or a family member dying, Zuckerberg highlighted that users might not always want to ‘‘like’’ something and would instead prefer to express empathy.