• by Colin Kirkland , February 14, 2025

As some major social companies focus on developing their platforms around joyful experiences, Instagram is testing a new button that would allow users to dislike or downvote comments on posts.

“Some of you may have seen that we're testing a new button next to comments on Instagram - this gives people a private way to signal that they don’t feel good about that particular comment,” Instagram head Adam Mosseri posted on Threads.

To reassure concerned users, Mosseri offered more information about the test, which has appeared across both Feed posts and Reels.

“There is no dislike count, nor will anyone know if you tap the button,” he said. “Eventually, we may integrate this signal into comments ranking to move disliked comments lower down. Our hope is that this might help make comments more friendly on Instagram.”

Instagram may be taking a page from Reddit's playbook, which has included a downvote option on its platform for years that it uses to sort different types of comments. However, these are very different types of social platforms, Reddit being primarily a discussion-based platform, while Instagram prioritizes visual content and has almost 2 billion more active users.

Although Instagram says these downvotes will be private and used to “help create a better experience,” many users have mused about Instagram “bringing back bullying,” while “creating yet another way [to] spread negativity [for] more engagement.”

“It's like they want to continue to see us argue and hate each other,” another user wrote.