Facebook Reactions To Expand Beyond The ‘Like’ Button — Multiple Options Instead Of Simple Dislike?


Facebook reactions, which were hereto restricted to the “Like” button, are expected to undergo a significant expansion. However, instead of giving in to the rising demand of a “Dislike” button, the social media giant is expected to include a number of emoticons that are intended to closely mimic the reaction to the content.

Facebook’s “Like” button has so far been the only symbolic “reaction” that anyone could give to a post. Though users could shoot a lengthy comment, it was the number of likes that a post received that defined the content’s virality. This is expected to change in a big way in the coming weeks. Facebook Reactions, which are expected to be deployed in the next few weeks, will allow users to react differently to the things they see on the social media site.

Facebook’s Like button mercilessly and ironically, emotionlessly, abridged and condensed all of our emotions to a post into a single symbol. Now, the social media company is expanding the iconic blue like into a total of six different emoticons, reported Bloomberg. Apart from the like button, there could soon be five more internationally recognized emotions, which Facebook is calling “Reactions.” These reactions are “haha,” “love,” “angry,” “wow,” and “sad,” reported the Comment.

With Facebook Reactions, users will no longer be forced to like posts that anger them or make them sad, reported TechRadar. The new choices through Facebook Reactions will allow a Facebook user to express their sadness (sad emoticon) or love, and other such emotions. Unfortunately, Facebook still hasn’t offered a definitive Dislike button, which would clearly indicate the emotion. Instead, the only emoticon that comes close to Dislike is the angry emoticon, clarified the company through a statement about the change, which reads as follows.

“Today we’re launching a pilot test of Reactions — a more expressive Like button. As you can see, it’s not a ‘dislike’ button, though we hope it addresses the spirit of this request more broadly. We studied which comments and reactions are most commonly and universally expressed across Facebook, then worked to design an experience around them that was elegant and fun. Starting today Ireland and Spain can start loving, wow-ing, or expressing sympathy to posts on Facebook by hovering or long-pressing the Like button wherever they see it. We’ll use the feedback from this to improve the feature and hope to roll it out to everyone soon.”

How to use the new Facebook Reactions? Facebook has literally expanded the Like button. This means, all the added emotions are hidden beneath it. Those who wish to express their precise reaction to a post need to hold their thumb on the Like button to scroll through and select the one that sums up your mood. Essentially, a short press will merely like the post, whereas a long press will allow the user to insert an emoticon that resembles an actual emotion.

As with all such path-breaking features, Facebook has been quietly testing the Reactions too across a few countries. The social media platform’s users in Spain, Ireland, Chile, the Philippines, Portugal, and Colombia have reported being greeted with the expanded Like button in October last year. Interestingly, there was one more emoticon, labeled Yay, which never made the final cut, because users who tested the feature reported they did not fully understand what it stood for. According to Facebook’s admission, the “Yay” was dropped because it wasn’t “universally understood.”

It was Facebook’s Chief Product Officer, Chris Cox, who had first proposed the idea of adding more emotions or expanding the Like button. Incidentally, Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, had shared plans of adding a Dislike button, to the social network a few months ago, reported Digital Trends. However it is quite apparent now that Mark wasn’t keen on adding such an emotion that would cast a negative shadow over any content that goes up on Facebook. It is further obvious that the angry face is as close as we’re going to get to a dislike, reported Yahoo.

[Photo by Stephen Lam/Getty Images]

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