10 Yetis Insight – Facebook “dislike” button explained – it is just a #PRStunt

TLDR: We predict the dislike button is a publicity stunt and it will be publicly killed a few weeks after launch. We also don’t think the button will appear automatically, users will have to opt to use it on each update.

Like many others, I have looked on with stunned silence at the announcement that Facebook is to launch a “dislike” button. Zuck (we are BFF4EVR, he is fine with me calling him that) has said they are doing this because they have listened to feedback from users that say they want this dislike option. The numbers I vaguely recall Facebook quoting in terms of users asking for the new button is around 250k – this was on a BBC news report this morning.

This is the first red flag. This is a relatively low number of users given Facebook’s customer base. Let’s not forget, only a few weeks ago Facebook announced it had, for the first time, 1bn active users on the site at one time. Wow.

If we look at the potted history of Facebook and the unwritten mantra it kind of lives by, this is all focused around “being positive”. The dislike button is a massive step away from this and in its very name, is hugely negative. Yes, the new button will satisfy demand from those who are posting sad status updates, bereavement, bad news and running out of battery on your phone, you get the gist, but it will, as is the very nature of us vicious human’s, be mis-used in a negative way. The second red flag.

In an era where cyber-bullying has overtaken real-life-bullying, the dislike button will surely be the first stop for those wanting to make a person feel bad about them-selves. As a dad of three, nothing evolves my placid character into a carbon copy of Liam Neeson in Taken, more than the thought that one of my kids is getting bullied online. The fact that parents will be able to, in theory, see their kids online detractors will only lead to the problems escalating and spilling into the real world with potential revenge. Sinister for such an early time of the day, I know…

Moving to brands and the impact, I can see this as both good and bad. Many thousands of brands now spend millions of pounds in product testing, secret focus groups and understanding how a product will be received. The like and dislike button will give an immediate answer to this.

Brands will have to move this testing to “private” pages in order to stop the cheeky competition from “gaming” the responses… I would immediately click dislike if a competitor asked for feedback on a great idea – wouldn’t you? Oh… just me.

Similarly, imagine how the collective media would react if a brand launched a new product or service on Facebook, only for it to get 90% “dislike”. The brand would get savaged in the press. In reality though, in no time at all, there will be services on the likes of Fiverr that will enable you to buy 1m dislike clicks and you can point these at brands, people, pets that you don’t like.

The media won’t necessary care or understand that these are false clicks, they will just write the story as a brand fail. Oh dear. Red flag number three…

All of the above has lead me to make the below two predictions:

1.Facebook will give you the option to show a dislike button before making a status or update live. The dislike button will not automatically appear, unlike the like button.

2.This is all a well-planned publicity stunt and after a few weeks or months of this being deployed, Facebook will pull the dislike button and say that it is doing so because it has listened to its consumers. I am calling it that this has been the plan all along.