Facebook launching upgraded ‘like’ button with reaction emojis

Facebook has more than 1.6 billion users a day with the traditional “like” button getting about 6 billion clicks a day. At that time, Facebook said that users would eventually be able to choose between a few emotions apart from Like: namely Love, Yay, Haha, Wow, Angry, Sad.

Facebook users have, for years, lamented their lack of options when interacting with the mountains of posts generated on the social network.

Many people wanted a dislike button to press as a way of reacting to bad news, but the site anxious that the tool might be used in negative ways.

The global rollout follows on from a period of intense local testing in Spain, Ireland, Chile and a number of other countries.

Be Civil – It’s OK to have a difference in opinion but there’s no need to be a jerk.

To access the new options, users have to hold down the “like” button until the additional reactions pop up.

Anyway, these new emotional buttons will appear on the Facebook mobile app when you push down on the usual thumb for longer than you would normally.

According to Bloomberg, the new “like” button began a year ago with a challenge from Facebook’s Chief Product Officer Chris Cox.

“As you can see, it’s not a “dislike” button, though we hope it addresses the spirit of this request more broadly”, Cox wrote on his Facebook page.

Given that this is the biggest retooling to come to Facebook in a while, brands will want to see how the new features impact their customer interaction.

The company worked with sociologists to analyze the most common reactions across the social media platform to determine which emoji faces would make the cut.

People will be able to use the “reactions” by clicking and holding on the “like” button, which will still show underneath every post.