Twitter may introduce a button that lets you indicate that you don’t like certain comments under tweets. It is not a button that changes the order of comments like some other social media platforms. We explain how it works.
Twitter Downvote
Twitter is testing a new button that allows you to mark comments under tweets as dislike. The feature was previously tested on iOS to a very limited extent, but now the dislike button is also coming to a limited group of users on the Twitter website. Reverse engineering expert Jane Machun Wong knows that. This will test the function on a larger scale.
Twitter is working on Downvote button for web after testing it for iOS pic.twitter.com/jd0V8sAsjK
— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) October 21, 2021
The dislike button may be reminiscent of what some will know from other social media platforms like Reddit, but in fact, it works completely differently on Twitter. First of all, you can only dislike comments under tweets and tweets themselves only have a like button. In addition, you may not like comments, but that information is not publicly visible, even to the person who posted the initial tweet or comment. It does not change the order of comments and it is not the case that comment with many dislikes ends up at the bottom of the conversation.
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How The Button Works
So what is the button for? Twitter only uses it to collect more data about what its users think is good content. Information about which types of responses are a useful addition to a conversation and which are not.
We know that Twitter is currently working behind the scenes on several ways to make the conversations on its platform more enjoyable and less toxic. It aims to encourage users with notifications to respond in a respectful manner. Information from the dislike button helps Twitter’s algorithms learn which responses are perceived as disruptive by users.