Twitter Is Getting Rid Of The "Like" Button - I Dislike This.
MASHABLE – Twitter is about to remove the red, heart-shaped ‘like’ function from its platform, reports suggest.
According to the Telegraph, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey said at a Twitter event last week that he would get rid of the like function “soon.” Per the Telegraph, Dorsey said he “was not a fan of the heart-shaped button.”
In March 2018, Twitter introduced a bookmarking function, which allows users to privately save tweets without hitting the like button – which not only implies a positive attitude towards the content of the tweet, but is also public.
Twitter’s potential removal of the like button forms part of an effort to create a healthier climate of debate on the platform, the Telegraph reports.
I would like to create a Dislike button simply to stamp on my own post here. I am perhaps the internet’s #1 proponent of the Like, Favorite, Love feature – whatever you want to call it or whatever symbol they decide to make it. I will not criticize Twitter because I refuse to be a hypocrite. I use their product every hour of every day and could not do my job without it. So I won’t play armchair quarterback and act like I know what’s best business-wise. I will just say that the Like feature is, what I call: the tool for the humble.
It is how those with humility and grace acknowledge one another.
The number one characteristic of a decent society: saying please and thank you. And the Like button is the ultimate “thank you.”
Say somebody tweets you that they love you, that you’re hilarious, that your writing is incredible, that they can’t stop reading your blogs and engaging with you and printing out your profile pictures and making Fatheads of them for their walls. The Dave Portnoys of the world will just retweet that to the entire internet. Boastfully shoving their praise in everyone’s face, arrogantly broadcasting compliments to the masses. Sometimes they’ll even go on a tweet rampage, hitting RT after RT after RT on a series of tweets fueling their own egomania and supporting their ideas and opinions, or just simply showing off how beloved they are.
Some of us just want to say “hey, thanks” without forcing everyone on our timeline to see the compliment. We just want to acknowledge the nice kind words. We don’t want to waste the time writing out “thank you” and moving the mouse all the way over to click “send,” but we do want to give that little heart button a little tap tap taparoo. Like thank you LizzBlizzy94xOx, I appreciate you saying how you were in tears over my last millennial blog and used a digitally printed photo of my avatar to wipe the tears away. I don’t need everyone to see that she said that. I just want to say I appreciate it.
So Twitter, if you take away this major source of decency/dopamine…I’ll be forced to do absolutely nothing, because I need my breaking news and memes. But I’ll dislike it.