Instagram Tests Comment Downvotes To Combat Negative Interactions

Meta is once again trying out a dislike button for comments, this time on Instagram, in the hopes of establishing more signals that it can use to downrank comments that users find to be overly negative and/or harmful to their in-app experience.

As you can see in this example, some IG users are now seeing a new downvote arrow to the right of the comment functions, which they can tap to signal that they don’t like a particular remark.

As explained by Instagram chief Adam Mosseri:

“We're [currently] testing a new button next to comments on Instagram. This gives people a private way to signal that they don’t feel good about that particular comment. There is no dislike count, nor will anyone know if you tap the button, [but] eventually, we may integrate this signal into comments ranking to move disliked comments lower down.”

So it’s not about agreeing or disagreeing with a comment, nor voting down misinformation. It’s more about addressing harmful remarks, which Mosseri says could help to create a “more friendly” environment in the app.

Which Meta has tried before. A couple of times, actually.

Back in 2018, Meta tried out downvotes on Facebook comments with some users, with the same purpose in mind, in highlighting overly negative replies.

In 2020, it tried out the same for group comments, though neither stuck around in the app for too long.

Yet, it evidently remains a concept that Meta’s keen to explore, as a means to help address negative interactions in its apps.

Mosseri further explained that creators have raised this as a concern:

“What we’re testing is a downvote button on comments. We’ve heard a lot of feedback, particularly from creators, that the comments can kind of get nasty and mean at times, and the idea, which is just a test to be clear, is to allow people to downvote comments. It’s private, so no one will know, and there’s no count on it that anybody can see, but we can use that signal to lower comments that might be aggressive. It might work, it might not, but we want to do what we can to improve comments for creators particularly.”

So yes, it’s a downvote option, which could technically be weaponized to reduce the visibility of anything that you don’t like in the app. But the intention is to provide a means to tag overly negative remarks and responses, so that Instagram can then refine its display algorithms to reduce the impact of such.

Which, in theory, is an interesting concept, and maybe, at a small scale, it could be effective, in the hands of the right users.

But just like X’s Community Notes, which Meta is also looking to replicate, any system that enables groups of users to reduce the visibility of content will inevitably be misused, at least to some degree.

In the case of Community Notes, there have been various reports of groups of Community Notes contributors that are coordinating to up and downvote comments, based on political and/or philosophical alignment. Combine that with the fact that Community Notes are only ever shown when users of opposing political perspectives agree that a note is necessary, and there are some fairly big gaps in the system that Meta’s looking to deploy.

Essentially, if you give people a mechanism to silence opposition to their ideals or beliefs, intentionally or not, they’ll use it, and coordinated brigading of this function seems inevitable, if it is ever rolled out on a broader scale.

Which is why it won’t be, and why IG is being very cautious with those who it includes in the test.

But like Meta’s previous trials of the same, I suspect these new arrow icons will disappear very soon.