Twitter Reportedly Thinking About Killing The…Like Button

Posted on October 29, 2018 by Mehedi Hassan in Social with 30 Comments

Twitter is reportedly thinking of removing the like button from the social network. At a Twitter event recently, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey admitted that he wasn’t a big fan of the heart-shaped like button, and the company “could be getting rid of it soon,” according to a report from Telegraph.

The company is thinking of removing the like button to help increase positive, healthy conversations on the platform. It’s only one of the few things the company is working on to help users have more positive conversations on the platform. And although some of those features are quite promising, removing the like button doesn’t sound like a good idea at all.

Twitter has responded to the Telegraph’s report, claiming that the company doesn’t have any plans to kill the like button right now. On a tweet, the company said that it’s “rethinking everything” about the service — including the like button — to incentivize healthy conversation, and it’s still in the “early stages.”

Not only will removing the like button mean you simply won’t be able to “like” content on the platform, but you also wouldn’t be able to use it support others, or agree with something in an argument. The like button has a wide variety of uses, with some users even using the feature to save their favourite tweets. Removing the feature to help “incentive healthy conversation” would mean retweets will be the only way of any sort of communication on the platform.

Here’s the thing: there are a plenty of other, obvious ways of helping positive conversations take on Twitter, like banning nazis or taking user reports seriously, for example. Twitter also needs to understand that political Twitter isn’t the only thing happening in the platform, and some of its changes aren’t going to help most of the other “communities” or parts of Twitter.

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Comments (33)

33 responses to “Twitter Reportedly Thinking About Killing The…Like Button”

  1. Avatar

    jprestig

    This should solve all of Twitter's problems.

    2 years ago
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  2. Avatar

    mike2k

    The like and retweet button are lazy forms of engagement. Before those things you had to actually put effort into engaging with a tweet and limiting it to 140 characters. That worked. Now with double the characters and a simple button to retweet garbage, it’s way to easy for that garbage to go viral. It’s to late to go back but I’d be all for getting rid of the like and retweet buttons. I’d also prefer if Twitter stopped putting profiles in my feed that I don’t follow. Such as when someone i follow “liked” a tweet or replied to a tweet. That is the single reason I left Twitter. I was sick of seeing profiles in my feed that I didn’t follow. Just my 2 cents

    2 years ago
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  3. Avatar

    darrellprichard

    Users: We want an "Edit" button.


    Twitter: Ok. We hear you loud and clear so we'll remove the "Like" button.

    2 years ago
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  4. Avatar

    randyspangler

    What about leaving the LIKE button, adding a DISLIKE button and adding a BAN button that only OPs could use to kill off nasty, evil comments. A like or dislike would not be able to be banned, only unsavory comments and banned comments would still show up with a placeholder. It adds accountability and also shows how the OP takes criticism.

    2 years ago
    0
  5. Avatar

    Tony Barrett

    Social platforms like FB, Twitter and others just breed hate and anger and are platforms for racial and emotional abuse, screwing up the minds of the young and are stalking grounds for sexual predators. It doesn't matter how they try to control these things, there's a percentage of humanity that are just sick and twisted and will ALWAYS find a way to abuse these platforms. Social media is just another channel for these wackos to sink to all new levels, yet FB and others don't really care as long as they're making money out of them. I really don't know where the world is heading, but if it carries on down this path, the outcome is not going to be good.

    No, I don't use any social media, and couldn't care less about the 'like' button, but I'm seeing first hand what these systems are doing to our kids, and it's not pretty.

    2 years ago
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  6. Avatar

    IanYates82

    Wrong approach IMHO. Without a like button we're just going to get a lot of noise - needing to reply to a message to indicate support, or needing to retweet it.

    I used to think "where's the dislike button" when someone on Facebook posted they were having a bad day (not the bad day to warrant a comment, the sort of post like "lined up for coffee, finally got it, tasted horrible")


    When they changed the little thumbs-up to the choice of 5 (?) reactions that made sense to me.


    Twitter could maybe do the same? (I know this may just make things worse, but perhaps it may also help because you can register dislike without having to write something - others may register dislike without typing our their bile)

    2 years ago
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  7. Avatar

    provision l-3

    "Not only will removing the like button mean you simply won’t be able to “like” content on the platform, but you also wouldn’t be able to use it support others, or agree with something in an argument. The like button has a wide variety of uses, with some users even using the feature to save their favourite tweets."


    Sorry to say but you really aren't making the case for keeping the like button here. You mentioned a wide variety of uses but really only came up with two and one is about perpetuating arguments.


    2 years ago
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  8. Avatar

    Winner

    Well thank goodness we still have the up arrow here at thurrott.com!

    2 years ago
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    • Avatar

      SupaPete

      In reply to Winner: i like the way the up/down voting works here better than just a single "like" count.
      I would like it even more if it was showing the up votes and down votes separately next to the arrows instead of combining them in a single number. Would give even way more detail on the reaction on it.


      2 years ago
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  9. Avatar

    mnkypete

    Regarding:


    Here is the thing: there are a plenty of other, obvious ways of helping positive conversations take on Twitter, like banning nazis or taking user reports seriously, for example.


    See, Twitter is STILL trying to figure out a technical solution (removing or adding features), instead of facing the truth: You will need humans moderating and watching out for this kind of shit. And you'll need lots of them. This is something everyone, who has ever been on a good old forum software knows: You need mods, and they will need to be active as hell to avoid all kinds of trolls.


    Let's see if they get it before they become irrelevant.

    2 years ago
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  10. Avatar

    Jason Peter

    I’m still trying to determine why Twitter still exists...

    2 years ago
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    • Avatar

      gregsedwards

      In reply to Jason_P:

      It exists because it makes still makes plenty of money for the company. But I assume you're rhetorically asking why anyone bothers using it anymore. Like any social networking platform, it fills a unique need that its users prefer. Hateful users aside, I prefer Twitter over other platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. It's clean, basic, and egalitarian in a way these other platforms aren't. It's not loaded up with games and VR and stickers and memes like Facebook. It's not stuck on one specific medium like Instagram, and it's not trying to be some hybrid mashup of messaging and infotainment like Snapchat. In short, it's still a great way to share updates and links with a broad audience of people who share my interests.

      What do you suggest as a replacement for Twitter?

      2 years ago
      0
  11. Avatar

    skane2600

    As long as powerful people like Trump can ignore the rules everybody else has to follow, twitter will remain toxic and any other reform won't be considered sincere.

    2 years ago
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  12. Avatar

    sandip2805

    Awesome Article. It was helpful for me. THE COMPLETE WEB DEVELOPER IN 2018 ZERO TO MASTERY DOWNLOAD

    2 years ago
    0

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