Facebook users can soon show concern and empathy to their friends' unfortunate posts through the Facebook "dislike" button.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced during the Q & A session at Facebook's headquarters in Menlo, California that the additional feature of Facebook is already on its way.
"Today is a special day because today is the day that I actually get to say we are working on it, and are very close to shipping a test of it," the 31-year-old Facebook founder said.
Zuckerberg said that the Facebook "dislike" button could be used as an appropriate response to users' posts about unfortunate events in their lives such as death of a family member or onslaught of calamities among others.
"What (users) really want is the ability to express empathy. Not every moment is a good moment," Zuckerberg told Time.
Meanwhile, social and participatory media expert Andrea Forte of Drexel University in Philadelphia supports the Facebook "dislike" button.
She believes that users will be careful in using the newest feature and they will less likely turn towards each other's post.
"They may use a dislike button to express some negative emotions (like frustration with ads popping up in their feeds) but I doubt it will cause them to start wantonly disliking pictures of their friends' babies, dogs, cats and cooking experiments," she told BBC News in an email.
"I suspect it will mainly be used to express mild disapproval, or to express solidarity when someone posts about a negative event like death or a loss," she added.
Meanwhile, Sophos security researchers warned users against scams ads that lure them to activate the dislike button but would instead lead them to unrelated sites or ask them to give personal information such as their address or credit card information.
"Facebook wouldn't make you jump through hoops to activate a new feature. Attackers and phishers often use the colors and logos of the companies to make their fake sites look legitimate," said CBS News.
