The downvote button now tested by some Facebook users in Australia and New Zealand

Earlier this year, Facebook began testing a downvote button but only made it available to a limited number of users in the United States. Now, the same button — which has nothing to do with the dislike button that many Facebook users have been waiting to become available for years now — rolls out to some Facebook users across Australia and New Zealand.

According to a Facebook spokesperson who talked with CNET, "we're running a small test in New Zealand which allows people to upvote or downvote comments on public Page posts. Our hope is that this feature will make it easier for us to create such spaces, by ranking the comments that readers believe deserve to rank highest, rather than the comments that get the strongest emotional reaction."

This test comes as a direct consequence to the pleas of the users who told Facebook that they need to get "spaces where people with different opinions can have more constructive dialogue." Although Facebook only mentioned New Zealand, Australian users of the social network also reported the limited-scale introduction of this feature.

Sadly, it seems that the dislike button that we're all waiting for is not coming in the foreseeable future. Back in February, a Facebook representative said that the company was not testing such a feature. Since the latest statements do not even mention the dislike button, it is rather safe to assume that Facebook is still not working on it, so we can only hope they add it as soon as possible.

From the Facebook user's point of view, I can say that I'd like to see a dislike button much more than one that allows me to downvote comments — and I am not even touching the way Facebook (or the third parties it outsources this task to) handles reports.