Does Facebook Need a 'Sympathize' Button? Maybe you too have had this experience: you're browsing Facebook and see a sad status update from an acquaintance or friend you've lost touch with. They've been fired; they've had a death in the family; maybe they just had a bad day. You want to show that you care, but you don't know them well enough to say anything that doesn't sound trite. Then you see that someone has — perhaps accidentally — hit the Like button. Whatever you do, you think, don't be that guy. One Facebook engineer has come up with a solution for such a situation: a Sympathize button. We learned this Thursday from Facebook's annual Compassion Research Day — yes, the social network devotes a whole day to sharing various ways it's trying to "build empathy and foster trust" with users.