Over the past couple of days, some Instagram users have been reporting a 'dislike' button while scrolling through the comments section of posts or Reels. Now, Instagram's head Adam Mosseri has confirmed in a Threads post that the company is indeed working on a dislike button, according to India Express.
Like YouTube, the new button, which will appear in feeds and reels, won't show the number of dislikes and no one will know if you've pressed the button, but Instagram will take it into account in the order in which the comment appears. Comments with a lot of dislikes won't appear at first. For now, the test is still limited to a small group of users, and in the future, comments may be moved to the bottom of the comments section to improve the user experience.
Users have noticed a new dislike button during their recent browsing of comments in both posts and Reels on Instagram. Social media leader Adam Mosseri validated the development of a dislike function through his Threads announcement to India Express news.
When users select the new button it will appear in feeds and reels yet their actions remain private since Instagram will not display the number of dislikes nor track which users click on the button while it determines comment presentation order based on this activity. When comments obtain numerous dislikes they will not surface immediately. A limited user group currently tests the feature and the platform aims to place comments at the comment section's bottom to enhance user experience after further development.
Reddit has operated its downvote ranking mechanism for comments since years ago whereas Meta appears to move in that direction yet the system's weighting strength remains uncertain.
Mosseri stated that people need the "dislike" button as a confidential response to express their discomfort with comments while it also seeks to establish friendlier interactions on Instagram.
A spokesperson from Instagram mentioned that the dislike button received testing from a small user group but Meta did not reveal details about future plan deployment or timetable for this new button.
The social media company Meta announced its development of a dislike button after Alessandro Paluzzi revealed the platform was testing this feature last month for better Comment section quality improvement.
The company representative stated that their team develops tools for users to maintain better Instagram control while receiving suitable content. At present they test a specific control button next to each social media comment and Reels media content to allow users to explicitly report undesirable or inappropriate content.
