Facebook starts testing ‘downvote’ button for comments

Facebook hides the comment from users who click the ‘downvote’ button.

Facebook now lets users ‘downvote’ and ‘upvote’ comments. (AFP)

Facebook had confirmed testing a 'downvote button' back in February this year. Many users have now started seeing the downvote button along with an upvote button on Facebook.

First reported by The Next Web, the downvote and upvote button appears on comments and has a simply up and down arrow as the symbol. Facebook users started posting screenshots on Twitter. Clicking the "downvote" button hides the comment for the user who taps it, then asks the user to say whether the comment was "offensive", "misleading", or "off topic".

Surprisingly, the downvote button by Facebook is getting a thumbs down. Facebook users have been constantly requesting for a "dislike" button. Although the downvote button is close to a dislike button users aren't excited for this feature and instead find it weird.

Upvote and downvote comments on Facebook, when did this happen? pic.twitter.com/q9F7OcJ4R3

— Carter (@cwsbbb) April 29, 2018

Facebook's "like" button allows users to express their approval for the messages, photos and other content their friends posted.

The social networking giant is also literally sizing down the doubtful stories to prevent the triumph of falsehood on its platform.

As part of its new strategy to combat fake news, Facebook wants its users to miss these stories at the time of scrolling their News Feed, while not withdrawing them altogether so as to walk a fine line "between censorship and sensibility".

When an article is verified as inaccurate by the social network's third-party fact-checkers, Facebook will shrink the size of the link post in the News Feed, TechCrunch reported.

"We reduce the visual prominence of feed stories that are fact-checked false," a Facebook spokesperson was quoted as saying.

Facebook is also now using machine learning to look at newly published articles and scan them for signs of falsehood.