Elon Musk\u2019s X, formerly known as Twitter, is working on a downvoting feature to improve reply rankings. Although the company hasn’t officially announced its plans, recent findings suggest the downvote feature may resemble a \u201cdislike\u201d button rather than a traditional downvote icon. Code references found in the X iOS app now show a button that appears as a broken heart icon next to X\u2019s heart-shaped \u201clike\u201d button, along with direct references to a \u201cdownvote\u201d feature.<\/p>\n
As Twitter, the company tested downvoting in 2021, before Musk\u2019s acquisition. During the original experiment, Twitter tested both upvoting and downvoting buttons across all posts. The latest tests indicate that X is considering allowing downvotes only on replies to highlight better responses and push less-liked replies further down the thread. This could deter users from posting content meant to provoke anger and generate dislikes as engagement.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, reverse engineer Aaron Perris, @aaronp613 on X, found references in X\u2019s iOS app indicating a downvote feature in development. He has since found additional image files suggesting the button could be styled as a broken heart, along with more direct references to the feature itself.<\/p>\n
“The ability to dislike posts is coming to the X for iOS app as well,” Perris tweeted, sharing screenshots that show newly added references to a \u201cdownvoting\u201d function and prompts asking users to confirm their downvotes. For example, one reads \u201cDo you want to downvote this post?\u201d while another simply instructs users to \u201cDownvote this post.\u201d<\/p>\n
The wording of these prompts, which references \u201cposts\u201d and not just \u201creplies,\u201d raises questions about whether X is considering bringing a downvote feature to all posts on the platform or just replies.<\/p>\n
Another user, @P4mui on X, shared videos of the dislike button in action, including one where a user asked them to dislike their reply to a post. The user, who had enabled the dislike button using a feature flag, noted that the button was currently only available on replies, but it was unclear if this would change later.<\/p>\n
“The new dislike button in action (internally called downvote) is currently only planned for replies,” tweeted @P4mui.<\/p>\n
The dislike button was also reportedly seen on an X employee\u2019s account, who shared a video demo of a new way to expand replies. That post was quickly deleted and reposted without the dislike button visible.<\/p>\n
Given the increasing number of sightings, it appears likely that more public tests of a dislike button are imminent.<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t the only change X has made to its \u201clikes\u201d system under Musk\u2019s ownership. Recently, X began hiding likes from public view, allowing people, as Musk put it, to like more \u201cedgy\u201d content without affecting their image.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Elon Musk\u2019s X, formerly known as Twitter, is working on a downvoting feature to improve reply rankings. Although the company hasn’t officially announced its plans, recent findings suggest the downvote feature may resemble a \u201cdislike\u201d button rather than a traditional downvote icon. Code references found in the X iOS app now show a button that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3742,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[472,9],"tags":[473,650,649],"class_list":{"0":"post-3741","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-app","8":"category-example-3","9":"tag-app","10":"tag-twitter","11":"tag-x"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/netcomglobalservices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/netcomglobalservices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/netcomglobalservices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/netcomglobalservices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/netcomglobalservices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3741"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/netcomglobalservices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3743,"href":"http:\/\/netcomglobalservices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3741\/revisions\/3743"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/netcomglobalservices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/netcomglobalservices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/netcomglobalservices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/netcomglobalservices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}