Facebook begins the rollout of its Reddit-like downvote button

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Down with bad comments

Facebook downvote

In an effort to clean up its act, Facebook took a leaf out of Reddit’s book and began testing upvote and downvote buttons for comments. 

While the trial was carried out in the US, Facebook is now rolling out the new tool to more users. Going by tweets posted since the start of its rollout over the weekend, it appears that most of the users are in Australia and New Zealand.

Power to the people

The new tool has been employed for comments on public posts and, Facebook insists, isn’t similar to the thumbs-up and thumbs-down options for ‘liking’ or ‘disliking’ posts. 

Facebook wants its users to use the new tool to downvote “bad comments” that have “bad intentions or [are] disrespectful”, but there doesn’t seem to be anything to stop users from employing the downvote button in a similar manner to the dislike option.

Users, however, can’t seem to make up their minds about the new tool. While Facebook might be doing everything it can to recover its tarnished reputation, it might take time for the new system to work as efficiently as it does on Reddit.

Sharmishta Sarkar
Sharmishta Sarkar
Managing Editor (APAC)

While she's happiest with a camera in her hand, Sharmishta's main priority is being TechRadar's APAC Managing Editor, looking after the day-to-day functioning of the Australian, New Zealand and Singapore editions of the site, steering everything from news and reviews to ecommerce content like deals and coupon codes. While she loves reviewing cameras and lenses when she can, she's also an avid reader and has become quite the expert on ereaders and E Ink writing tablets, having appeared on Singaporean radio to talk about these underrated devices. Other than her duties at TechRadar, she's also the Managing Editor of the Australian edition of Digital Camera World, and writes for Tom's Guide and T3.