Twitter Plans To Remove 'Like' Button in a Bid To Improve the Quality of Debate, Report Says (telegraph.co.uk)

Twitter is planning to remove the ability to "like" tweets in a radical move that aims to improve the quality of debate on the social network, UK news outlet The Telegraph (paywalled) reports, citing CEO Jack Dorsey's comments at a recent company event. From the report: Founder Jack Dorsey last week admitted at a Twitter event that he was not a fan of the heart-shaped button and that it would be getting rid of it "soon." The feature was introduced in 2015 to replace "favourites," a star-shaped button that allowed people to bookmark tweets to read later. Update: In a statement, Twitter neither confirmed nor denied the report, adding that it was indeed in the process of rethinking "everything." It said, "As we've been saying for a while, we are rethinking everything about the service to ensure we are incentivizing healthy conversation, that includes the like button. We are in the early stages of the work and have no plans to share right now."

Comments

Bookmarks to come back?

[swinferno]

Wonder if the bookmark option will come back. That made more sense to me anyway.

Re:Bookmarks to come back?

[MightyYar]

It will be replaced by a selection of other emojis, including mad, laughing, sad, laughing, and woah.

Re:Bookmarks to come back?

[Sique]

The problem is that the "Like" button wasn't technically an "I appove" button, but a "keep me informed about the tweet" button. Thus people who wanted to stay informed, had to "like" something they might not approve of, e.g. a hurrican made landfall and a tweet about damages and evacuations was something you definitely wanted to know, but that doesn't mean you approve to the hurrican making landfall or the way evacuations were executed.

Re:Bookmarks to come back?

[Ol Olsoc]

I'm wondering what the problem with the "like" button is?

Could it be that too many people are liking the "wrong" things?

Perhaps too many people are liking things that go against the political bent of the Twitter owners/management believe in?

Who knows. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the concept of Twitter and "quality of debate".

Twitter is not a place for debate, and in no way shape or form does quality of anything have anything to do with the place.

It is however, a fine place for intellectually or emotionally challenged individuals to spout off within the limitations of their ability. Any thing that comes in a nutshell belongs in one.

Re:Bookmarks to come back?

[donaggie03]

How can I like this comment?

Re:woah

[MightyYar]

I don't know what any of you do with Twitter, but marking things for followup seems reasonable enough. It's not necessarily just for reading the tweet, but for the content linked in the tweet or as a reminder to revisit it later to see how the conversation has progressed or to comment yourself.

Re:Please copy bookface

[forkfail]

You are the product.

Exercise for the student: who are the users?

Their product turned against them.

[kurkosdr]

Every social media platform tries to eliminate the "like" button lately. You see, if there is a "like" button and no "dislike" button (which can be abused by the internet thought patrol to silence dissidents), all voices will be heard and most importantly their impact will be assessed (to a degree). Which isn't good if you are progressive CEO of a "hip" tech startup who believes in political bullying and the silencing of "non-progressive" voices.

Re:Easiest way to improve quality of discourse

[Ol Olsoc]

Don't forget the leftwing nutjobs too. I drive a Prius, I recently got cut off by a large pickup truck with a bumper sticker saying they will cut off Prius. I live in a rural areas, Pickup Trucks are common, because they are often needed for their livelihood. My Livelyhood requires me to commute 30 miles to work, so I got a car with the best gas mileage that I could afford at the time. The pickup truck driver sees Prius owners as a threat because Prius Owners has/had a tenancy to be preachy and he probably fears that if we have our way we will push him to get rid of his truck that he enjoys and uses for his livelyhood, and get the same little car that I have. Now that he was clearly targeting me, I no longer like that particular driver, but I always need to be cautious around larger pickup trucks because I know they see me as a threat. This sounds stupid, but it is a sign of our times. We see our differences a threat vs a benefit.

You need a big rear window sticker that reads, "Prius Owners for Second Amendment Solutions to Traffic Problems"