X, formerly known as Twitter, is currently testing the implementation of a negative button for posts. This feature will allow users to rate posts based on their relevance or accuracy. Before Elon Musk acquired the platform, Twitter had experimented with negative and positive buttons in 2021 as a way to evaluate tweets similar to the Reddit system. Now, X is considering integrating a downvote button into posts to indicate when content is deemed irrelevant.
The news about the downvote button was discovered after references were found in the code of the latest update of the iOS application. The company plans to add negative votes to improve the ranking of posts on the social network. Engineer and analyst Aaron Perris shared this information in a post on X, showing an image of the downvote button shaped like an inverted yellow arrow next to the ‘Like’ heart icon.
Engineer Jay Baxter, founder of X Community Notes, along with Elon Musk, have also mentioned this feature. Baxter mentioned that downvotes could complement the commented notes feature as an additional method of evaluating posts. However, he cautioned users to be wise in their use of the negative buttons to avoid creating a hive mind like Reddit. X aims to prevent this by incorporating private ratings from users in addition to comments.
Overall, the addition of a downvote button on X could provide users with a new way to express their opinions on posts and help improve the ranking of content based on user feedback.