14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook has added an interesting, if small, new feature to the News Feed, an "unlike" button. While it's not the mythical "dislike" button many have been asking for, it does make it easier to stop getting updates from pages you no longer like.
Clicking on the small "X" button next to any update from a Facebook Page will list the regular options, "Hide this post," "Hide all by [page]," "Hide all by [app]" and "Mark as spam," but also a new "Unlike Page" option.
The new option does exactly what it says, it removes the page from your "liked" ones. They also have the option of unliking a page from the line indicating that they liked the page. In this case, after selecting the "Delete Post and Unlike" option, users also get a confirmation dialog.
The feature should come in handy when your interests are no longer reflected by a page or when you want to remove any traces of that page from your profile.
Facebook has always had the option to stop receiving updates from a certain page, by selecting "Hide all by ...," however, the page would still be listed as "liked."
The difference is that the page would still be displayed in your profile interests and you would still be counted as a fan of the page.
Of course, users have always had the option to unlike any page, but they had to visit it and search for the "Unlike" link which usually meant scrolling down quite a bit, to the end of the left sidebar.
The new options make it easier for users to remove likes and encourage pages to not send "spammy" messages or too many updates in a row.
Still, don't get your hopes up for a "dislike" button any time soon. While people would love the ability to actively not like a page, Facebook is unlikely to introduce such a feature any time soon.