Like it or not, Facebook unveils new emoting emoji: love, haha, wow, sad and angry
The global social media giant gives people five new options of sharing their emotions via digital symbols
Here’s something you might love: You don’t have to just “like” Facebook posts anymore.
By popular demand, Facebook is going beyond the ubiquitous thumbs-up button with a new shorthand to express your thoughts and feelings.
Acknowledging that “like” isn’t the right sentiment for every occasion, the giant social network is offering new options. Reactions, five emoting emojis, began rolling out to Facebook’s more than 1.5 billion users around the globe starting Wednesday.
With a click of a button, you can choose from new emotions when commenting on a status update. Hold the “like” button on mobile or hover over the like button on desktop and five animated emoji pop up. Tap on love, haha, wow, sad or angry to express your reaction. Posts in News Feed will now show a tally of the reactions — how many loves, how many wows — a post gets.
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Make no mistake: Reactions are not designed to capture the full range of human emotions. No “meh” or “trash”, Facebook wants to give people a fast and simple way to express thoughts or feelings in a positive, supportive way, not to troll friends.
Today is our worldwide launch of Reactions -- the new Like button with more ways to express yourself. Not every moment you want to share is happy. Sometimes you want to share something sad or frustrating. Our community has been asking for a dislike button for years, but not because people want to tell friends they don't like their posts. People wanted to express empathy and make it comfortable to share a wider range of emotions. I've spent a lot of time thinking about the right way to do this with our team. One of my goals was to make it as simple as pressing and holding the Like button. The result is Reactions, which allow you to express love, laughter, surprise, sadness or anger. Love is the most popular reaction so far, which feels about right to me!
Posted by Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday, February 24, 2016