Be Wary New Facebook Dislike Button Scam

Online, November 5, 2015 — Social media users got a rude awakening this week as a sneaky scam made the rounds on Facebook, preying on everyone’s frustration with the platform’s long-awaited “dislike” button. For years, people had been begging Mark Zuckerberg and his team for a way to react negatively to posts without resorting to a thumbs-down, and scammers jumped on that hype with a fake version that promised the world but delivered trouble instead.

The scheme worked like this: Links popped up in users’ feeds, often shared by friends or in groups, claiming to offer early access to an official dislike button. Click on them, and you’d end up on a shady site that asked for your login details or tricked you into downloading what looked like a harmless app. In reality, it was malware designed to steal personal information, hijack accounts, or even lock people out of their profiles. By Thursday, reports flooded in from users who found their pages spammed with ads or saw their friends lists compromised.

It’s frustrating how these cons exploit our excitement for new features. Facebook hadn’t announced any dislike button at the time — it was all just rumors and wishful thinking — yet thousands fell for it. Security experts noted that the scam spread fast because it played on trust; who wouldn’t believe a buddy sharing something cool? One user told me they lost access to their account for days, calling it a nightmare of phone calls and password resets.

In the end, the best defense was simple awareness. Facebook’s team scrambled to remove the fraudulent posts and warned users to stick to official channels for updates. While the platform eventually rolled out reactions in 2016, this incident served as a sharp reminder that not everything that goes viral is worth the click. People learned to pause and think twice before jumping on the next big thing online.