Facebook is testing a “downvote” button that lets users flag and hide comments they deem inappropriate.
The feature was confirmed to various media outlets by the social networking giant on Thursday.
“We are not testing a dislike button. We are exploring a feature for people to give us feedback about comments on public page posts. This is running for a small set of people in the U.S. only,” a Facebook spokesperson said.
The feature was shown in a tweet by a reporter from The Daily Beast.
When the downvote button is hit, a user has the option to report the comment as “offensive,” “misleading” or “off topic.” The comment is then hidden from the user.
A Facebook spokesperson told TechCrunch that the reason behind the new feature is to let people signal to the moderators that a comment is inappropriate, uncivil, or misleading.
The downvote button currently only appears on public posts on Pages, not on individuals’ accounts, according to TechCrunch.
Facebook insisted that this was not a “dislike” button. In 2015, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company was experimenting with a dislike button, which ended up forming the basis for the feature that allows people to react with different emotions, which is currently on the site.
The latest move by Facebook could be part of Zuckerberg’s broader push to fix the social networking platform this year. Already the company has made a major change to the News Feed by putting fewer posts from publishers and advertisers in it. Zuckerberg said the goal is to start prioritizing “meaningful social interactions” versus “relevant content.”
