Great news for anyone who’s ever wanted to post a different reaction other than “liking” a friend’s Facebook status — starting today, you’ll be able to express a much wider range of emotions. Facebook has started rolling out its new “reactions” buttons that let you respond to your friends’ posts using an assortment of emoji that offer a range of expressions for laughing, happiness, surprise, sadness and anger. It will also give you the option to tell someone you “love” their post.
Here is the emoji bar that some users will see starting today and that will gradually arrive on all users’ Facebook pages over the next few days:
All the faces will be fully animated and they’ll look the same on the site everywhere in the world.
Interestingly, Facebook told Bloomberg earlier this year that it rejected adding a simple “Dislike” button like the one that’s available on YouTube because they were worried about it generating too much negativity. Given that the YouTube comments sections are generally a cesspool of nastiness, that’s not an unreasonable concern.
Of course, there’s also a business benefit to Facebook’s new reaction bar, as it will give advertisers a more granular and nuanced look at how people are reacting to their content. And we all know how much Facebook just loves helping advertisers get a better understanding of its users…
