New TikTok Feature: A “Dislike” button is being tested by some users

TikTok is now testing a “dislike” button for comments, which will allow users to remove “abusive and hateful content or behaviour that violates our Community Guidelines.” Just as the blog post noted, the video-sharing platform will let individuals identify comments they believe to be irrelevant or inappropriate.

When a user dislikes a comment, it won’t be made public and the commenter is not notified either. If someone comments on something, they won’t be able to see how many times it’s been disliked.

According to TikTok, the button is just a tool for its users to report comments that may be spam or that don’t make sense in the context of the video posted. It will help keep the comment section consistently relevant and a place for genuine engagement. “To avoid creating ill-feeling between community members or demoralising creators, only the person who registered a dislike on a comment will be able to see that they have done so,” the company adds.

It appears that TikTok has been working on the “dislike” button for at least a few months now, as social media strategist Matt Navarra spoke about this in a tweet shared on January 27th this year.

There are different types of “dislike” buttons on a lot of social media platforms. YouTube has a “thumbs down” button for comments, but the number of people who don’t like a video isn’t public. Reddit, on the other hand, has a downvote button for comments, but the totals for upvotes and downvotes are public. On top of that, Twitter has been testing a private downvote button for replies to tweets that you send.

TikTok is also experimenting with reminders that will direct users to the app’s comment filtering and bulk block and delete options, as well as the new private dislike button. Users who have a lot of negative comments on their videos will get reminders about how to improve their videos. As a result of the test that TikTok is going to do, they will decide in the coming weeks whether or not to make it available to everyone.

It would be great if TikTok added this feature to its other tools for creators, like the option to filter all comments for manual review or filter comments that include keywords they’ve chosen, if it was fully rolled out. Users can also choose who can comment on their work. Among other things, you can choose to let anyone on the platform comment, only people you follow back, or no one at all.