It seems the days of being quietly enraged at a particularly mean comment on Instagram without any means of expressing yourself besides directly replying might soon be over. As confirmed by its head Adam Mosseri on Threads, the Meta-owned platform is currently testing a new dislike button in the comments section for each post. While there is no confirmed release date as of yet, there has been confirmation from the head of the Meta-owned social media platform through Threads.
While some users in the US have been able to view and use the dislike button on Instagram, it is still unavailable to users outside of the country just yet. Mosseri expressed optimism in the feature’s introduction, saying that this would be a step towards making the platform more “friendly”.
View on Threads
The Instagram head Moserri adds that there will be no dislike count or any way to tell who it was that hit the dislike button, as it will all be done anonymously. The platform is also considering moving the more disliked comments further down the comments section ala Reddit, possibly as a way to reduce the visibility of the more rude comments.
While this feature may have the potential to reduce or rather, hide the amount of distasteful comments, some users seem to be unsatisfied with the regulations of the comment section. Many are instead urging Instagram to pay more attention to the mass amounts of offensive remarks – some are purposely misspelled to bypass restrictions. Users also worry that accounts with more dislikes on their posts will have less visibility due to Instagram’s algorithm, potentially harming small businesses and the likes.
The dislike button is not a new feature on social media platforms. Video sharing platform Youtube had this feature since its debut back in 2005, though it began hiding the total amount of dislikes from the public in 2021 to avoid having content creators feeling “attacked”. While this developing Instagram feature has definitely garnered mixed reactions from the public, it would certainly be an interesting change, with admittedly potential positive impacts on the amount of distressing comments scattered throughout the comments sections.
(Source: Adam Mosseri, via Threads / Engadget)
Manisha Dharmendra contributed to this article.
