For many years, Facebook’s ‘like’ icon adorned the sign greeting visitors to the company’s California headquarters.
This, of course, was an image of the Like button that launched in 2009. It was eventually replaced by Meta’s blue pretzel logo in Mark Zuckerberg’s main office in 2021. But by then, it was already clear that the ubiquitous blue handcuffed fist had become one of the most important pieces of computer code ever released, shifting the goalposts of how the world consumes information, markets products, and communicates.
Today, 20 years after Facebook launched on February 4, 2004, countless Likes are made every day, from personal photos to news to viral posts (especially viral posts).
Like and its ability to turn media into a popularity contest has powered many of the social media giants founded in its wake, and has also helped drive entire parts of the economy, such as influencer marketing. But it has also been at the center of debates about privacy and has been blamed in part for the rise of highly polarized and distorted content online, ‘fake news’ and filter bubbles.
On the anniversary, Yahoo News takes a look at the Lookalikes Zuckerberg is building.
Why didn’t the ‘like’ almost happen?
Facebook wasn’t the first site to use a button that allowed users to indicate consent. Social news site Digg, for example, had a way to ‘Dig’ or ‘Embry’ news stories, but Facebook’s Like has eclipsed these due to its versatility and scale; You can like anything from a friend’s photo to a local business.
On Facebook, the iconic button almost didn’t make it to the real world; Company employees believed it was a ‘cursed project’ due to Mark Zuckerberg’s rejection.
Writing on the Q&A site Quora, Facebook engineer Andrew ‘Boz’ Bosworth described a meeting in 2007 where Zuckerberg turned down the feature. He wrote: “It looks like it’s ready to launch and all set, but the latest review with Zuck is surprisingly not going down well. Concerns about whether the interaction is public or private are cannibalizing the sharing feature.”
Bosworth also recalled how the project, initially codenamed ‘Props’, was discussed using plus signs or asterisks, then ultimately decided to be received favorably once internal approval was received in 2007.
This button was first known as the Awesome button and was initially tested in people’s News Feed with a system for both positive and negative feedback.
Before this practice was adopted, the team had to prove that using the Like button did not reduce the number of comments that were popular on Facebook at the time. In tests, the team found that having a Like button actually augmented Comments.
“We’ve introduced an easy way to tell your friends you like what they’re sharing on Facebook with one easy click,” Facebook said in a blog post at the time of the launch. “Wherever you can comment on your friends’ content, you’ll also have the option to click ‘Like’ to tell your friends exactly that And you’ll get: ‘I like this.'”
How it changed the world
The Like button quickly grew to become the hub of Facebook, dictating (among other things) what stories a visitor to the News Feed would see.
As Facebook puts it: “When you like something, it allows us to show you other content we think you might want to see, too.”
This ‘Like’ helped bring about a massive shift in the media landscape, with posters encouraging the pursuit of Likes (other, more complex ‘reactions’ such as a sad face and a love button were added years later).
The more Likes a post gets, the more it will be seen by other people; so users and media outlets quickly learned to manipulate their output to garner more and more likes.
Ezra Callahan, one of Facebook’s first dozen or so employees, told Fast Company that some at the company worried that the Like button was too easy and that it would “take away thoughtful engagement because people are lazy and take the lazy route.” outside”.
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But the momentum was unstoppable. Likes powered a new news feed ranking algorithm; helped increase advertising; and allowed Facebook to collect data about users’ habits. Every subsequent competitor, from Twitter to TikTok, has since relied on Likes or a similar mechanism to drive the algorithm that feeds people’s content.
And given that the three most popular sites young people use to consume content – Instagram, TikTok and YouTube – are driven in part by technologies similar to Facebook’s ‘Like’ button, it’s unlikely to change much in the near future.
The dark side of likes
Facebook’s Like button has led to a knowledge economy where users have become addicted to refreshing their screens, just as gamblers have become addicted to slot machines.
The ‘Like’ button lets users know what they see on the screen and also rewards them for posting content that engages others.
Professor Daniel Kruger from the University of Michigan suggested that apps such as Facebook aim to be “as addictive as possible” and affect the same brain areas as cocaine. This helps explain one of the main reasons why Facebook has become so ingrained in our lives: we can’t let it go.
Behavioral psychologist Nir Eyal, author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products, told the Guardian in 2018 that such products are designed to be addictive.
“It starts with a trigger, an action, a reward, and then an investment, and through these hooks, habits are formed through successive cycles,” Eyal said. We see these in all kinds of products, especially in social media and gambling. “That’s a big part of how habits are changed.”
“Products are designed to be interesting, and what is interesting to some is addictive to others, that much is clear.”
Concerns about Facebook (and social media more generally) and its impact on mental health are also growing. Analysis of early Facebook users (while limited to US universities) found that it led to a 7% increase in severe depression and a 20% increase in anxiety disorders.
A 2018 study by University of Queensland researchers found that taking a short five-day break from Zuckerberg’s app actually reduced levels of the stress hormone cortisol.
But after five days, most of the 138 volunteers reported a decline in their well-being and were looking forward to returning to Facebook.
The influence of the like button is also linked to important political moments.
Facebook’s algorithms were used to influence the general election in the Philippines in 2015, the Brexit vote in the UK, and the US Presidential election in 2016.
In 2014, Cambridge Analytica employees obtained the private data of tens of millions of Facebook users to create voter profiles. The data of 87 million users was collected by a seemingly innocent app and used to target political ads.
Facebook ‘Likes’ were key to this, allowing political groups to create complex psychological profiles for targeted advertising. Just a few ‘Likes’ were enough to create profiles showing a person’s gender, who they would vote for, and predict their vulnerability to substance abuse.
What does the future hold?
Social media expert Elisah van Allen, Head of Social Media at specialist communications agency 33Seconds, says the Like button has created entire economies of scale, such as the rise of social media influencers, but it also has a dark side in terms of its impact on people’s mental health.
“The FB ‘Like’ button has changed the way we connect with individuals, brands and businesses. It allows people to quickly and easily acknowledge each other’s ideas, achievements, moments etc., which is a form of positive support,” Van Allen told Yahoo News UK. creating and encouraging more meaningful interactions online.
The ‘Like’ button also shapes online algorithms, influencing the content we see and the connections we make. Its impact on user engagement and content visibility has paved the way for influencers, content creators, and brands to succeed online, using it as a recognized measure of popularity and relevance.
But Van Allen says the downside is also very visible in today’s world; in everything from the pressure to seek approval online to low-quality content produced to garner backlash.
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The changing media landscape created by the like button has been blamed for everything from the rapid spread of fake news, which goes viral as users like and share anything that aligns with their worldview, to ‘filtering bubbles’, where algorithms ‘learn’ about the user. it creates preferences and feeds them with a media environment that is skewed by only one side of the argument.
Van Allen says: “On the media and publishing side of things, it can be argued that the ‘Like’ button has had an impact over time on the type of news content we consume and the way we respond to it – for example, leading certain publications to deliberately produce polarizing content in order to elicit an immediate emotional response from readers. “
“Likes can potentially be damaging to our mental health and the validation-seeking behavior this can lead to. Striking the right balance between cultivating a positive online environment and addressing the potential pitfalls of social validation is a challenge we cannot ignore and must continue to take, especially among young people who are now growing up with social media in their lives.” for generations.”