Twitter Pushes Back on Report ‘Like’ Button Will Be Dropped

No changes are coming “soon,” company rep says

and | October 29, 2018 @ 8:29 AM
JACK DORSEY

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The rumors of the “like” buttons death have been greatly exaggerated, Twitter said on Monday.

The company is pushing back on a report that its chief executive, Jack Dorsey, teased the impending removal of the “like” button.

The Telegraph reported on Monday that Dorsey said at a recent company event that the feature would be scrapped “soon.” Dorsey said he “was not a fan of the heart-shaped button,” according to the Telegraph. But Twitter, when reached for comment by TheWrap, said that isn’t the case.

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Twitter pointed to a tweet from Brandon Borrman, a member of its communications team, saying the company has been “open” to changing the like feature, but that there’s “no timeline. It’s not happening ‘soon.'”

Borrman’s response added to Twitter’s communications account saying it was “rethinking everything” but that it had “no plans to share right now.”

The like button replaced the “favorite” button back in 2015 — with the company explaining at the time: “You might like a lot of things, but not everything can be your favorite.” It’s since acted as a stepbrother to the retweet button, where a user liked your tweet, but not enough to share it.

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Twitter has made a concerted push this year to “improve the health of the conversation,” as the company has routinely put it. Dorsey, speaking at Wired’s 25th anniversary summit earlier this month, appeared to be considering whether the like button helped the company reach this goal.

“We have a big like button with a heart on it and we’re incentivizing people to want it to go up,” Dorsey said. “Is that the right thing? Versus contributing to the public conversation or a healthy conversation? How do we incentivize healthy conversation?”

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Several Hollywood and Silicon Valley heavy hitters recently ditched the social network

For over a month, Facebook has been dealing with the PR nightmare sparked by its admission that the data of up to 87 million users was secretly accessed by consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, and later used to help Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.

The slip up sparked the #DeleteFacebook hashtag, in which people on Twitter and other spaces announce they're doing precisely that. Facebook has tried to course-correct with new security measures, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg agreeing to testify before Congress. But that wasn't enough to keep some A-listers from joining #DeleteFacebook.

Here's a look at the celebs that have dropped their profiles (so far). 

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