Facebook Reactions to roll out ‘in next few weeks’

Whilst the famous thumbs down symbol hasn’t been included, users will be able to add a sad or angry face to their messages – with other featured emotions including Like, Love, Haha, Yay and Wow also appearing.

Back in March, the rumour mill spun into overdrive about at the possibility of a “dislike” button after Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said that the site wanted to give users the option to express feelings other than “liking”.

Looking forward to everyone going nuts when Facebook Reactions are released in the next few weeks. The social media giant has definitely made social networking more fun with the addition of the Like button.

The like button is Facebook’s most recognised icon after the blue and white “f” logo.

We’re now on the cusp of Reactions, a feature that will expand upon Facebook’s like button with a handful of common responses.

Chris Cox, Facebook’s chief product officer, said: “You can love something, you can be sad about something, you can laugh out loud at something”.

Reactions have already been tested in countries like Spain, Ireland, Chile, the Philippines, Portugal, and Colombia. From there, you can select one of the five new options, each of which is represented by a cute animated image.

To use a Reaction, users need to hover over (or long-press if you are using a smartphone) the Like button and select an emoji that you’d like to use.

Facebook said it had 1.59 billion monthly active users as of December 31, up 14 percent from the end of 2014. A spokesperson told Bloomberg that they made a decision to axe the planned sixth “yay” button, because “it was not universally understood”. This means Facebook can deliver more targeted ads to users based on their reactions to different posts.

Apart from focusing on mobile, Facebook has been ramping up spending on what it calls “big bets”, including virtual reality, artificial intelligence and drones to connect the remotest parts of the world to the Internet.