Facebook testing a Dislike button

What is the etiquette for acknowledging a post on Facebook that relays bad news?

a) Like the post but risk sounding callous or completely unsympathetic?

b) Write a comment, but that takes effort and could show more empathy than you really want to convey?

c) Ignore it, therefore showing no sympathy whatsoever?

Facebook are now testing a solution to the problem, a dislike button. No it is not a button to press when you don’t like the post, and it isn’t intended as a down-vote button to be incorporated into the mind warping Facebook algorythm either.

It is intended to be a button to show empathy with the post.

While this is great for the person faced with the dilemma of showing no sympathy or being misinterpreted as a callous soul, it does also reduce the likelihood of writing a comment.

And comments do help the Facebook algorithm. Likes are a bit lazy frankly, and don’t carry the same weight as a comment when Facebook decides where to place your post in the news feed.

Just a thought when you a using your business page to post the sad news that the office plant has finally died.

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