Why you can't dislike something on Facebook

Everybody has had that moment (or maybe a few) where you wished you could 'dislike' something you've seen on Facebook. And you wouldn't be the first person who's wondered why there's no dislike button.

Turns out the folks over at Facebook HQ have had the discussion on whether or not to include one, and it turns out that there's not likely to ever be a 'dislike' button anytime soon.

Online social media is still a relatively new 'thing' and it's often a bit of a minefield as the human race comes to term with it, people learn how to handle it in terms of etiquette, privacy, security, and also how to make money off it.

The reason 'like' came into existence was largely from a marketing perspective - consumers can 'like' products or brands. According to Facebook's former CTO Bret Taylor, it was also a way of streamlining everyday exclamations and comments that people would often leave on their walls like 'cool' or 'sweet'.

But it can be confusing as to when to like and not like something. With no 'dislike' button how do you properly acknowledge somebody's status when, for instance they've just posted about how one of their pet chickens has died, or a family member has picked up some exotic illness? To 'like' that, well it just doesn't seem right.

Unfortunately the answer isn't in creating the polar opposite button. Research and analysis showed that a dislike button created too much negativity, and online - especially in the jungle of social media - the last thing we need to be doing is encouraging that. Fears that a 'dislike' feature could be used as a means of cyber-bullying were founded - people, we just can't help ourselves.

So for the foreseeable future, if you dislike something it looks like you're stuck having to think up an appropriate comment.