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Downvotes Might Finally Ruin Twitter
👍 or 👎?
I am staunchly against emoji reactions in online communication. In Instagram direct messages, reaction responses weaken conversations and compel participants to be lazy communicators. One-click communication, as likes and reactions are sometimes called, is cheap: easy to use, but you get what you pay for.
So when news came out that Twitter is currently testing adding reactions, including downvotes and upvotes, to tweets (not just in DMs, where they currently aggravate), my hackles rose — until I really thought about it for a minute. Part of what makes private DM reactions frustrating is that people use them, essentially, as read receipts, yet unlike read receipts, which I actually appreciate, they elicit a notification that implies you’re going to receive a message from somebody, only to see that, yes, your conversation partner saw your message. Cool. (After I wrote my story bemoaning DM reactions, Instagram changed its design so that reactions do not create notifications or show up as traditional messages.)
But public-facing reactions on Twitter, according to experts I spoke to, could potentially make the platform a more rewarding and emotionally rich experience. A “like,” which Twitter currently and somewhat confusingly denotes with a heart, has ambiguous meaning, particularly since Twitter likes were once “faves” represented by stars. If I like a tweet, does that mean I like the tweet? That I’m bookmarking it for later perusal? That I agree with what the tweet says? This is complicated by negative tweets. If an acquaintance tweets that they were laid off, what does it communicate if I like the tweet? Unclear.
A well-designed suite of emotive reactions could make it easier for Twitter users to communicate with each other and foster relationships they might otherwise feel uncomfortable building. But there are also potential downsides. They could erode the quality of dialogue and create lazy Twitter users, as with the DM reactions. And negative reactions could make it easier for people on Twitter to bully and harass others.
