Facebook Adds Emoji 'Reactions' In Lieu Of Dislike Button

This sure isn't the "dislike" button people were hoping for.

Facebook on Thursday announced the rollout of a new "Reactions" button, which lets users respond to posts with six emoji-inspired faces, as well as the traditional Like.

Just press and hold the Like symbol to activate Reactions, and the new options will appear alongside the familiar thumbs-up icon. 

Here's the button in action:

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.

Posted by Chris Cox on Thursday, October 8, 2015

Marc Zuckerberg said in September that the company was working on a feature to satisfy people who'd been asking for new ways to interact with posts. Many assumed that new feature would be a "Dislike" button, but these new options allows for a greater range of responses. 

So now, if your friend posts about taking her dog to the vet, you can insert a "sad" emoji in response. Or a "yay", if you're a terrible friend.

Facebook designed the six new options by studying which comments and reactions are most frequently and widely used across the site. 

The feature will be tested first in Spain and Ireland and will be available on both mobile and desktop versions when it launches, according to a Thursday post by Facebook's chief product officer, Chris Cox.

Now that Facebook will have emojis, do we even need words to express ourselves? Will the comments section soon be a thing of the past? Respond with your emotions below.

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