X Moves to the Next Stage of Testing for Comment Downvotes

X is moving to the subsequent stage of its test of downvotes on post replies, with a new variation of its downvote alternative appearing in the back-end code of the app this week.

As you can see in this instance, posted by user @P4mui, X now has a new downvote button in production, which hasn’t been released for public testing as however, but does appear to be close to launch.

The new UI button on replies is a broken heart icon, as opposed to the heart for a Like. So it is properly a dislike button, which will be displayed on post replies only, not on actual posts themselves.

That will then assistance X rank the most relevant post replies in order, to assistance maximize engagement, although also providing customers a suggests to downvote spam and junk replies, ideally shifting them additional down and out of view. And as extra customers vote down extra junk, more than time, it’ll come to be much less helpful to reply to preferred posts purely for engagement, which, sooner or later, could disincentivize spammers from attempting.

Even though, of course, it’ll also allow men and women to downvote what ever comments they disagree with, which could see genuine criticism, or factual retorts, pushed out of the frame on ideological grounds.

But X is accounting for this as well, by factoring in the historic political bias of every user when employing dislikes as a ranking signal. So Trump supporters can not just bombard the replies of a pro-Biden post, for instance, with X seeking to use the identical political leaning measurement that it is constructed into Neighborhood Notes.

Which, ideally, will imply that the method is capable to rank replies with out political bias, even though a lot does rely on the specifics of how X decides what every person’s political slant is, and how it weights such.

But at least in theory, this need to assistance to assure that men and women do not weaponize this method to quash opinions that they basically do not like, with the bulk of agreed downvotes most probably going to the intended comments, getting spammers, engagement baiters, and the like.

And if it operates, it could assistance to increase engagement in the app, by highlighting the most exciting comments beneath every update. That’ll make it less complicated to jump into the associated conversation, with out possessing to wade by means of the trash.

X hasn’t supplied any particulars on the alternative as however, but it has confirmed that it is conducting early experiments, with a view to a broader test quickly.

So quickly, you will be registering your dissatisfaction of X replies with a broken heart emoji. Which appears a bit heavy-handed in a symbolic sense, but conceptually, the method could assistance to increase the X encounter, although also placing extra energy in the hands of customers to influence ranking.

Even though, in a associated consideration, I wonder how this aligns with X’s coming refresh of its feed UI., exactly where all of the reduce post function buttons will be hidden, in favor of a cleaner, plainer feed.

As you can see in this instance (shared by @aaronp613), you are going to nevertheless be capable to tap by means of on any post inside this new timeline format, and all of the reduce function buttons will nevertheless be there, so they are not going away completely, they are just getting hidden in the most important view. 

But it does also look potentially confusing. For instance, you are going to quickly be capable to swipe left to like a post, but to dislike a reply, you are going to have to tap on a distinct button, which will nevertheless be under the post. I guess the identical will apply to liking a reply as nicely, and I wonder irrespective of whether these variations in how you interact inside diverse components of the app will be a greater or worse encounter.

Conceptually, I recognize the need to create a extra responsive UI in the feed, primarily based on swipe functionality, which could, sooner or later, be extra intuitive. But if it operates that way in 1 element, but not in one more, that appears potentially problematic for adoption. 

Appears that we’re gonna’ find out, with each updates finding closer to launch.