Humans can be silly about not wanting to offend people, and one story from Facebook's "Events" team illustrates this perfectly.
Facebook is currently trying to revamp its Events feature, which had been in a holding pattern for quite some time, according to Wired.
And one change Facebook has already made is changing the wording on the "No" RSVP from "Decline" to "Can't Go."
This may seem like a trivial thing, but it's something Facebook obsessed over. Facebook had decided that one of the reasons people weren't clicking "Decline" was that the word was too harsh. It felt like a slap in the face to the person organizing the party.
There were two main phases in the running to replace it: "Can't Go" and "Not Going." It was a hard choice, Kathy Matosich, a content strategist at Facebook, told Wired. "We don't want to alienate anyone or make anyone feel icky … we don't want to put words in anyone's mouth," she said.
Eventually they chose "Can't Go," because even though it might not be technically accurate for all cases - I mean, sometimes you honestly could go to a party you blow off - it is closer to what people are usually trying to convey emotionally. Basically, in real life people usually claim they "can't go" even if that is just a white lie to spare their friend a bit of heartache.
But what is truly remarkable is not the choice of "Can't Go," but how users responded. People actually started using it more, Facebook told Wired.
Score one for politeness.