Facebook starts testing upvote & downvote on comments again

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Paawan Sunam
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Facebook has revived the tests of upvote & downvote option on comments in Groups. The feature was first found to be testing in early 2018.

The Facebook upvote & downvote options are similar to the ones seen on Reddit posts and comments. Although, votes on Reddit are publicly viewable, and on Facebook, they serve the purpose of feedback that would upstream or downstream a comment in the post.

This means depending on the upvotes or downvotes, a comment would appear higher above or low below in the post. The same feature was tested for a short term with a small group of users on Android in the US. Some users in Australia & New Zealand too reported having access to the feature.

This is not a dislike button that most users on Facebook are asking for, instead, it is another way flag content that is not valuable for the members of the Group.

Also Read: Key Takeaways from Facebook Q3 2020 Report

In the screenshots shared by Matt Navarra, Facebook mentions the voting is only on the basis of value provided, and no one except the voter will know how they voted.

Commonly, the comments in a post are ranked on the basis of the number of reactions to it. It is unclear whether, reactions on the post will not be accounted for, or an aggregate of both metrics would change affect the ranking.

Reactions have not been replaced, along with the 'Reply' option still available. If the option is rolled out only for comments in Groups, it might not lead to a bigger change.

But if it's rolled out for comments in all posts, or posts, or are publicly viewable, it would create tectonic shifts in content surfaced on the platform.

Screenshot Credits: Matt Navarra

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