For years, Facebook has resisted creating a dislike button, fearing it might create a more negative environment on the social networking site. However, it seems that attitudes at the tech company have changed and buttons that allow users to show more emotions than liking is in the works.

According to USA Today, founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg made the announcement during a Q&A session streamed live online. He explained that Facebook is close to creating a new button feature, but it probably will not be a “dislike” button. The new feature may be a button that allows Facebook users to show compassion and understanding for others in times of despair. For instance, a person posting a status regarding a death in their family. “It’s important to give people more options than just ‘like’ to help express empathy and sympathy,” Zuckerberg said. “Not every moment is a good moment.”

This new feature will not only allow Facebook users to illustrate different feelings about specific statuses, photos and comments, but will also prevent the negative atmosphere a dislike button may create. The popular social network encourages positive interactions among its billions of users and a feature allowing people to dislike certain statuses and photos could lead to bullying and other harmful exchanges.

Last December during another Q&A gathering, Zuckerberg stated that some people only want a dislike button so that they can express their disdain for another person’s post, regardless of the content.

“Some people have asked for a dislike button because they want to say, ‘That thing isn’t good.’ And that’s not something that we think is good for the world. So we’re not going to build that,” Zuckerberg explained last December.

Facebook would like to avoid petty conflicts between its users. An example of this could be a user posting a picture of their college acceptance letter on the news feed, and then another person dislikes it for whatever reason. Perhaps Zuckerberg hopes to prevent the negativity portrayed in YouTube’s comment section, and he wants to take preventative measures.

No announcement has been made regarding the launch date of Facebook’s new button features. Social media observers believe that new additions to the site will increase the site’s

popularity, a good thing for Facebook since many young adults have been migrating to other social networks like Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram.