Dislike button? Not on Facebook.
If you've clicked around Facebook enough in the past couple days – and Facebook users sure manage to do a lot of clicking – you may have seen a link to "the official dislike button on Facebook." You may have even briefly considered clicking the link, because let's face it – who hasn't seen at least a little bit of objectionable content on the Web?
Unfortunately, the Facebook dislike button is not officially authorized by Facebook. In fact, the dislike button is something of a scam, according to Facebook. (For more on these kinds of security loopholes, and how to avoid them, check out our primer from a year or so back.) When users click on the link, they are brought to a relatively officially looking install page, and prompted for permission to download an application.
"Interestingly enough, the app ultimately points you to an existing Firefox add-on called FaceMod, [which is nothing more than a skin for the browser but has been redubbed] the 'Facebook Dislike Button (the Original),' but the add-on doesn’t seem to be connected to the scam," writes Stan Schroeder of Mashable. "We haven’t verified whether the add-on works as advertised or if it’s dangerous, but one thing is certain: It is not coming from Facebook and it is not an official Facebook dislike button."
The app then hijacks your Facebook status and advertises the fake "Official Facebook dislike button" to all your friends, continuing the cycle.
The dislike button scam, of course, is a play on the very real Facebook "like" button, which was launched earlier this year. The functionality allows users to tag content outside of the Facebook site, even when the user is not logged on to Facebook. Not long after Facebook unveiled the feature, the social networking site was slammed for failing to adequately protect user information. In late May, Facebook finally relented, and greatly simplified its security settings.
As of yet, there is no official dislike button on Facebook – nor is there any evidence that one is forthcoming.
