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The announcement came during a question-and-answer session at Facebook's headquarters.

"People have asked about the 'dislike' button for many years, and probably hundreds of people have asked about this, and today is a special day because today is the day I actually get to say we are working on it and are very close to shipping a test of it," Zuckerberg said.

CNBC reported that the thumbs down/dislike option is not expected to work like Reddit's upvoting and downvoting, but rather to allow users to express an opinion other than liking a post, or as Zuckerberg said "to express empathy."

"It's important to give people more options than just 'like,'" Zuckerberg said.

Business Insider reported that the company hopes to launch the option soon.

"It's surprisingly complicated to make an interaction that will be simple," Zuckerberg said.

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Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens (right) tours the Vine City neighborhood with his senior advisor Courtney English (left). (Matt Reynolds/AJC 2024)

Credit: Matt Reynolds