Facebook’s ‘like’ button gets ‘angry’ and ‘sad’ as friends

The social network is finally rolling out reactions to everyone, Facebook announced Wednesday. In all fairness, we probably won’t ever see these reactions become reality (as the Independent noted, Facebook has already said no to what is perhaps the most requested reaction ever: a dislike button), but hey, a girl can dream. This will enable users to express their feelings in a much better way, so if you think that a simple “Like” doesn’t really convey what you are feeling, you can click on “Wow” and better represent what you are thinking about that particular content.

Social networking giant Facebook introduced Reaction on February 24th. However, a panel of new reactions was enabled for Hong Kong users on Friday, allowing followers to respond with “love“, “haha“, “wow”, “sad” and “angry” emoji. Zuckerberg then later went on to say that with the addition of a “dislike” button, Facebook would have risked becoming a site where people just vote posts up or down. It chose the most common ones and tested those. They needed a means to express their reactions to a post quickly and typing a comment was not always the option.

The “mother” of all Reactions is still the same thumbs up and one has to hover over it to see the six emoji “kids” pop up in a disciplined row. These emojis will look the same around the world, but phrases such as “love” will be translated. “People wanted to express empathy and make it comfortable to share a wider range of emotions”.

A profile picture he posted last December now has 55,000 angry reactions, 2,700 likes and 500 crying faces.

Facebook made a profit of $US3.7 billion ($5.2 billion) in 2015, up 25 per cent from a year earlier, its latest quarterly earnings report shows. It’s launching today on iOS, Android, and the Web.

Facebook has started the worldwide roll out of its like button alternatives, called “reactions”.

Like, love, haha, wow, sad and angry.

Now that users can speak Pirate, they can choose from different options including shiver me timbers, avast!, Yo ho ho!, and so on.

Facebook though stated it’s not the end but will keep listening to user’s feedback and continue to update their services to best suits user’s needs.

Specifically, Facebook is now going to be able to collect, and profit from, a whole lot more of it.

“If someone uses a reaction, we will infer they want to see more of that type of post”.