Mark Zuckerberg has announced that Facebook is adding a “Dislike” button to its social network.

In a Q&A session held at Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, Mark Zuckerberg, 31, said the button would be a way for people to express empathy.

The Facebook founder said the social network was “very close” to having it ready for user testing.

A “Dislike” button has been constantly requested by some users since the introduction of the now-iconic “Like” button in 2009.

“People have asked about the <<Dislike>> button for many years,” Mark Zuckerberg told the audience on September 15.

“Probably hundreds of people have asked about this, and today is a special day because today is the day that I actually get to say we are working on it, and are very close to shipping a test of it.”

However, Mark Zuckerberg went on to say he did not want the “Dislike” button to be a mechanism with which people could “down vote” others’ posts.

Instead, it will be for times when clicking “Like” on “Sad” posts felt insensitive.

Mark Zuckerberg has announced that Facebook may add a way to “dislike” posts on the social network.

Speaking at a Q&A session in California, Mark Zuckerberg said it was one of the most requested features the social network receives from its users.

The social network’s co-founder said the site would need to find a way to make sure it did not become a way to demean people’s posts.

According to Facebook’s own figures, 4.5 billion “likes” are generated every day.

“One of things we’ve thought about for quite a while is what’s the right way to make it so that people can easily express a broader range of emotions,” Mark Zuckerberg told an audience at Facebook’s headquarters.

“A lot of times people share things on Facebook that are sad moments in their lives. Often people tell us that they don’t feel comfortable pressing <<Like>> because <<Like>> isn’t the appropriate sentiment.

“Some people have asked for a dislike button because they want to say, <<That thing isn’t good.>> That’s not something that we think is good for the world.

“The thing that I think is very valuable is that there are more sentiments that people want to express.”

Facebook’s “Like” button has been criticized as being a method by which the social network collects data on its users’ browsing habits.

The system has also come under fire due to a high volume of “fake Likes” – when the popularity of a brand or piece of content is inflated artificially.

Facebook has moved to combat the trade of so-called “Like farming” – businesses that, for a price, will provide a huge number of likes quickly. This will be via automated robots, or by a network of humans paid a tiny sum for each click.

Facebook has initiated legal action against companies offering “fake Likes” or other bogus business practices on the social network.

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