Apparently drunk with power after slapping ‘misleading information’ labels on several of President Donald Trump’s tweets, Twitter is now reportedly “exploring” the option of adding a ‘dislike’ button.
During a Tuesday Twitter exchange with cybersecurity expert Jackie Singh, Kayvon Beykpour, Twitter’s product lead, said that while adding some sort of downvoting capability isn’t among the platform’s top priorities in the same way that limiting the spread of misinformation, removing bot users and eliminating harassment are, the feature was “something we’re exploring.”
Twitter has already added a slew of new features lately, with the most recent addition being “Fleets”—a disappearing media option that serves as an answer to the Instagram story and seems designed to appeal to lurkers who don’t want their inane thoughts to live on the app in perpetuity.
It’s worth noting that Twitter does already incorporate an option to downvote the content that appears on your timeline via the “Not interested in this tweet” button. By selecting the label, users can algorithmically de-prioritize similar content in their feeds without muting or blocking the user who tweeted the questionable content. An option to “dislike” tweets would likely have a similar effect on a user’s timeline, and would merely be streamlining the process — albeit in a slightly nastier, more public way.
For now, Twitter users intent on wrecking their friends’ lives by “disliking” all of their content will have to be patient, since the platform doesn’t seem to be mobilizing on such a feature anytime soon. For now, it seems the humble ratio will have to suffice.