Twitter Expands Downvote Button Test Worldwide

Twitter is globally expanding its testing of a new "dislike" or thumbs down button for tweets, which is designed to let people downvote replies on the social media platform.

twitter downvote
The company announced the global expansion of the test on Thursday, saying it had "learned a lot" about the downvoting option in its initial limited testing:

We learned a lot about the types of replies you don't find relevant and we're expanding this test –– more of you on web and soon iOS and Android will have the option to use reply downvoting.

Twitter says early tests showed the reason most users clicked the down arrow was because the reply was perceived as offensive, or because they perceived it as not relevant, or both. Twitter also said those testing the feature agree that "it improves the quality of the conversations on Twitter."

It's worth noting that the dislike button is only visible to the person who is viewing tweets – it is not a publicly available metric or visible to the author of the tweet. Twitter says that it is an internal tool that is designed to help Twitter understand what people think is valuable to a conversation.

Tag: Twitter

Top Rated Comments

japanime Avatar
18 months ago

It's worth noting that the dislike button is only visible to the person who is viewing tweets – it is not a publicly available metric or visible to the author of the tweet.
If that's the case, I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around how this benefits anyone except for Twitter's own marketing folks.
Score: 34 Votes (Like | Disagree)
entropys Avatar
18 months ago
Twitter is a sewer.
Score: 33 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Berti10 Avatar
18 months ago
YouTube dislikes this ?
Score: 17 Votes (Like | Disagree)
0924487 Avatar
18 months ago
Downvote will replace argument on Twitter. This can train the algorithm to only show you things you want to see and people you agree with. If you believe, for example, all women should stay at home and be housewives, you will get great satisfaction living in your confirmation bias facilitated by Twitter. Echo chamber effect will be significantly greater, similar to Reddit. Most people are not there to listen to different opinions or have their views challenged and consequently descend into the chaos and the unknown. They are there to be comfortable and hear what they want to hear.

Most people don't change their minds, they just die and be replaced.
Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)
berrymetal Avatar
18 months ago

Twitter is a sewer.
You should've tweeted that
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
metapunk2077fail Avatar
18 months ago
So the millions of bots used by scammers and dictators can simply downvote anyone who criticises scams and extremists.

No platform is good as long as bots exist.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)

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