Social media giant 'Facebook' has announced that it has dropped the like button from pages of public figures, brands and artists. The 'Like 'button will be replaced by followers count and the page will have a dedicated section for news feed where users can join conversations, interact with peers and engage with fans, the company said in a blog post.
Facebook on Wednesday said, "We are removing Likes and focusing on Followers to simplify the way people connect with their favourite pages". Easy navigation between personal profile and pages, updated task-based admin controls, actionable insights, safety and integrity features are some of the new additional features.
In its blog post, Facebook said that the new page design will make it easier for people to navigate between a personal profile and a public page. The new design has been made simpler and more streamlined than before.
"We are removing Likes and focusing on Followers to simplify the way people connect with favourite Pages. Unlike Likes, Followers of a Page represent the people who can receive updates from Pages, which helps give public figures a stronger indication of their fan base," Facebook said in a blog.
To enhance the page visibility to a wider audience, followers, news feeds, comments from public figures will be bumped to the top of the comment section. People will also be able to follow a page directly from comments and recommendations posts, the blog read.
The social media giant also said that it has improved its ability to detect illegal activities like hate speech, violent, sexual or spam content and impersonation on its platform. In order to curb this Facebook is expanding the visibility of the verified badge to make it easier to identify posts and comments from authentic pages and profiles.