Twitter was awash in reports Monday morning that founder and CEO Jack Dorsey said he is planning to get rid of the social network’s ‘like’ feature “soon,” but the heart-shaped button doesn’t appear to be going anywhere. At least for now.
Twitter, in a statement, said the fate of the like button, along with many other features, is being assessed as part of an ongoing look at how the company can encourage ‘healthy conversation,’ but there are no immediate plans for changes. (The company did not directly address The Telegraph’s claim about Dorsey’s statement.)
“As we’ve been saying for a while, we are rethinking everything about the service to ensure we are incentivizing healthy conversation, that includes the like button,” the company said. “We are in the early stages of the work and have no plans to share right now.”
Reaction to the news was mixed. Some users complained they used the feature to tag comments and stories for later reading, while others argued that Twitter’s troll problems wouldn’t be solved (and could be worsened) by doing away with the feature.
https://twitter.com/MaxKennerly/status/1056884241764700166
"when we report someone for death or rape threats or hate speech, please remove them."
twitter: "remove the like button? it's done."
"no, just the shitty people–"
twitter: "your account has been suspended for violating the terms of service."
— anne t donahue (@annetdonahue) October 29, 2018
Twitter has been purging fake accounts from the site and suspending and permanently banning some high profile users (including Infowars’ Alex Jones) for hate speech. But critics say the company still hasn’t gone far enough.
Recently, Twitter has come under fire for failing to remove the accounts of the Cesar Sayoc, man accused of sending pipe-bombs to several public officials and CNN.