Facebook to Expand Its ‘Like’ Button ‘Pretty Soon’

Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer of Facebook. Soon users will be able to choose from other options besides the “like” button on a friend’s Facebook post.

Zuckerberg’s net worth increased $4.85 billion to $46.25 billion, as Facebook stock climbed 12% in reaction to reports of Facebook’s strong quarterly earnings report. This new Facebook feature is basically a strip of emoji’s showing six facial expressions including Haha, Yay, Wow, Sad, Angry and Love.

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 option can be quite restrictive and, therefore, the introduction of Reactions will offer more appropriate response options for posts that one really cannot like, allowing a user to engage in the conversation.

Facebook has confirmed it will be rolling out a new set of emojis – dubbed Reactions – to replace its traditional Like button.

Facebook has been testing the different reactions in Chile, the Philippines, Portugal, Ireland, Spain, Japan and Colombia. “We know on phones people don’t like to use keyboards, and we also know that the like button does not always let you say what you want”. Facebook had initially also considered including “yay” to the list but axed the idea later, claiming that “it was not universally understood”.

Today we’re launching a pilot test of Reactions – a more expressive Like button.

The team picked the six reactions by consulting with sociologists, according to Bloomberg. Active users on WhatsApp and Instagram, the company’s biggest acquisitions, stand at 900 million and 400 million respectively, while Messenger has 800 million monthly active users. As you can see, it’s not a “dislike” button, though we hope it addresses the spirit of this request more broadly.