tech2 News Staff

Facebook is reportedly rolling out its new dislike/downvote button to a wider audience. Mark Zuckerberg had earlier said that this was being done to express empathy on posts that may reference topics where a "like" is not the appropriate response, such as a post on a terrorist attack or a refugee crisis.

The report by TheNextWeb, states that the downvote button is being used to flag 'bad comments' which might come out as having “bad intentions or is disrespectful.” As per the report, in a way, Facebook is trying very hard to not make this new button come out as a dislike button.

However, the chances are high that it will be used exactly like that. The dislike button is not a new concept as it is used on the social news aggregation website Reddit, where users vote on stories and comments via upvote and downvote buttons.

The roll-out will be gradual and not everyone will receive the feature. The report states that so far, people from Australia and New Zealand have been the ones who have gained access to this new downvote button. However, it can be assumed that this part of a wider rollout and eventually all the 2 billion users of Facebook might get access to it.