Unlove Me Instagram

Instagram have been testing a ‘downvote’ button. Anything similar is always overhyped as the arrival of a dislike button. It’s not an intentional move towards anything negative, rather a way to manage negativity.

As rage-bait and bots (not necessarily separate parties) consume social networks with their ability to draw in naive responses from uninformed parties, the downvote button is a tool designed to drop the visibility of comments.

Is it open to abuse? Probably. However, it does seem to put power in the hands of the people. Adam Mosseri, who heads up Instagram, noted, ‘This gives people a private way to signal that they don’t feel good about that particular comment.’ Downvotes won’t be visible, nor will they show a count.

We think it’s a great test, and hopefully one that can help the platform be more self-regulated, which is the absolute zenith for any platform.