We are big fans of Instagram here at JDR. The platform is a great way for businesses to publish and promote visual content and to show a more playful and informal side to their products and services, and engage customers in new and unique ways. It’s ‘digital marketing with a human face’ down to the ground. However, a new feature currently being tested by Instagram has divided opinion among users. This is the proposed dislike button that, should it be rolled out, would allow users to downvote an annoying, irrelevant, or distasteful comment.
In this article, we will look at what the dislike button is, how it works, and what it could mean for businesses and marketers.
What is the Instagram dislike button?
In February 2025, some Instagram users started to notice a ‘thumbs down’ button integrated into the comments section of Reels and feed posts, allowing users to express their dislike of certain comments. This was confirmed by Instagram’s CEO, Adam Mosseri, on a Threads post that explained that the dislike button was a public test currently being released to a small fraction of Instagram users. The purpose of the dislike button is, purportedly, to help ‘make comments more friendly on Instagram’, and to tackle allegations of spam, AI bots, and cyberbullying. Currently, a timeline for public release has not been confirmed, nor whether a full rollout will even go ahead.
Background: Reddit, Facebook, and YouTube
The best live comparison for how the Instagram dislike button could work in practice is the way that downvoting works on the social networking and community site Reddit. On Reddit, the downvote button has been a long-term, core feature of the platform’s voting system, and is intended to help users collectively curate content quality by expressing disapproval, or indicating that a comment or post is not contributing positively to the discussion.
The important difference to the proposed Instagram dislike vote is that downvoting on Reddit applies to both posts and comments. We need to be clear that Instagram dislikes currently apply only to comments, not content. Nevertheless, there may be some comparisons about how the two systems work in practice. In Reddit, posts and comments with more ‘upvotes’ rise to the top of the feed, while those with more ‘downvotes’ sink in prominence, making the platform’s content more community-driven.
On Instagram, therefore, when a comment receives more dislikes than likes, its score or ‘weight’ could decrease, and it could therefore become less visible in feeds. Another interesting comparison is the way that Reddit algorithms use the voting system to prioritise content in feeds that align with posts and comments that gain the most likes. In other words, downvoted content is less likely to be visible on feeds and in response to searches.
Downvoting controversy
Downvoting is controversial on Reddit for exactly the same reasons as the proposed dislike button is controversial on Instagram. This is because some Reddit users downvote comments or content simply because they disagree with the opinion, even if it is relevant and well-articulated. Groups of users may also coordinate to downvote specific comments, which could skew the algorithms unfairly against legitimate content. Unique or controversial perspectives in comments may also be buried due to extensive downvoting, stifling diversity and discussions.
Some Instagram users are unhappy about the proposed dislike button because of the effect it could have on discouraging participation and engagement. The feature could also lead to an ‘echo chamber mentality’ in which only the most popular and mainstream opinions thrive, potentially reducing the usefulness of the platform for smaller or outlying businesses to make themselves heard.
Dislikes and downvoting on Facebook
Instagram is not the only Meta-owned platform to experiment with a ‘dislike button’. Facebook did so in 2018, briefly testing a down-vote button in various regions. Facebook was at pains to deny that the feature was a direct ‘dislike’ button. Instead, the downvote button allowed users to flag inappropriate, misleading, or offensive comments in order to combat alleged fake news, as well as misleading or off-topic posts in Facebook feeds. Unlike the Reddit voting system, Facebook downvoting did not publicly display a score or affect the visibility of the comment to other users.
Despite some positive feedback about the way downvoting allowed users to flag harmful or irrelevant comments, the test was discontinued, with critics arguing that the feature added a layer of unnecessary complexity to the platform, and amid unresolved concerns about potential misuse.
Downvoting on YouTube
YouTube provides an arguably more successful example of the way a platform can implement dislikes or downvoting. YouTube has a dislike feature in which users can either like or dislike a particular comment or video, but the way the feature works has changed over time in response to user feedback. In November 2021, for instance, a significant YouTube update publicly hid the total number of dislikes on a video, making this visible only to the video creator in their YouTube Studio analytics platform. This was to reduce harassment and targeted trolling of YouTube accounts (known as dislike bombing) in which groups of users mass-disliked a video to harm its reputation. Following the update, users can still click the dislike button, but they won’t see how many others have also disliked the video.
Opportunities and challenges for businesses: Our opinion
There are pros and cons to the use of downvoting on social media platforms, and we are open-minded about the potential benefits for Instagram users. The fact that Instagram is experimenting with these features at all is a sign of the platform’s commitment to ways to increase engagement, quality, and authentic interactions among audiences. If the feature helps Instagram to self-regulate its content to remove low-quality or harmful material, then it will have a net benefit to businesses and their customers. However, the feature must also include safeguards against potential misuse, including harassment of smaller creators or unpopular opinions, which could undermine the reputation of Instagram as an open platform for visual storytelling and positive content creation.
There are several ways in which a dislike/downvote button could benefit businesses and marketers. For example, as long as dislikes are not publicly visible, downvoting could reduce the amount of overt disagreement and controversy within the comments section, making it a more creative and positive space for businesses to engage with their customers. If the downvotes are public, on the other hand, businesses could use dislikes as an opportunity to open up a candid dialogue, address customer concerns, and show that they value critical feedback. By observing how competitors handle downvotes on their comments, SMEs could refine their own Instagram strategies to increase engagement and stand out as more customer-focused and trustworthy.
However, for good or ill, a dislike button would make it even more important for businesses and marketers to craft their comments carefully to avoid triggering dislikes, focusing more intently on relevance, empathy, and clarity. Companies that use Instagram for business would also need to lean more heavily on accurate social media monitoring and analytics tools to track dislikes and identify trends in audience sentiment and engagement.
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