A Facebook “dislike” button could lead to a “whole new wave of bullying,” believes Cara Delevingne. The younger generation could suffer if friends and acquaintances were encouraged to make negative comments on their posts, warned the model, who has a huge social media following with 3.6 million followers on Facebook, 27.5 million followers on Instagram and 4.9 million on Twitter.
Last year, Mark Zuckerberg hinted that the social networking site was considering adding a dislike button in the options. Last week, Facebook rolled out five new emoticons to express feeling, including love, haha, wow, sad, and angry. Delevingne appears to be unhappy with the social media giant extending its existing “like” feature to include five other options.
“If you can go around disliking someone’s pictures, that is going to set off a whole new wave of bullying,” said Delevingne in an interview with Sunday Times Style magazine. “These companies are making so much money, they just want the new thing. If it’s something that is going to cause people harm, I really think we should steer against that. ‘Like’ away but if you have a bad thought about someone, keep it to yourself,” the model added.
Delevingne, who herself uses social media to comment on current affairs, said the youth of today, especially kids, now have so much power to change things that are wrong with our society; therefore, it’s important that they have somebody to look up to, whether it’s her or someone else.
The “like” button that appears beneath each post is one of the most prominent features of Facebook, and a “dislike” button has been the most requested by users for a long time. In a poll by YouGov Omnibus in October, 38% of respondents were found to be in favor of a “dislike” button.
Whether the famous model is right or wrong about the option can’t be said now. So we will have to wait to find out if the new option, if unveiled, does equal bullying. However, considering that Facebook has already introduced negative emotions in Reactions through sad and angry, it is less likely that it will come up with a dedicated “dislike” button.
