Facebook testing emojis as 'likes'

Facebook will begin testing "Reactions" in Ireland and Spain. Photo / iStock

Move over, long-rumored dislike button: We now have more details on how Facebook is thinking about expanding its "likes," and it looks as if the service is considering allowing users to express a range of emotional responses to posts on the site - through emojis.

The news shouldn't come as a surprise to those who parsed Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's comments last month, when he confirmed that Facebook was working on a dislike button-type feature.

Zuckerberg, however, said he wasn't interested in making his site a Reddit-style upvote/downvote bonanza and instead anticipated that Facebook would allow users to "express empathy" via a wider range of emotional responses.

Facebook will begin testing "Reactions," the new emotional responses, this week in two countries: Ireland and Spain, according to an announcement from Facebook.

The two countries were picked, the company said, because users there tend to have relatively few friends in other countries, making them ideal closed test samples.

There are six emotional responses on offer in addition to like: love (represented by a heart), haha, yay, wow, sad and angry. The additional options will pop up when a user goes to "like" a Facebook post, either on mobile (Android and iOS) or desktop.

For now, it doesn't appear that the reaction emojis will appear on other Facebook products, such as Messenger or Instagram, as Techcrunch noted.

As Zuckerberg indicated earlier, it appears that the choices are designed to move users away from a value judgment about whether a post is good or bad and toward an expression of the emotions the post elicits.

Chief Product Officer Chris Cox posted a video announcement of the service in action to Facebook on Thursday.

"Today we're launching a pilot test of Reactions - a more expressive Like button. As you can see, it's not a "dislike" button, though we hope it addresses the spirit of this request more broadly. We studied which comments and reactions are most commonly and universally expressed across Facebook, then worked to design an experience around them that was elegant and fun.

"Starting today Ireland and Spain can start loving, wow-ing, or expressing sympathy to posts on Facebook by hovering or long-pressing the Like button wherever they see it. We'll use the feedback from this to improve the feature and hope to roll it out to everyone soon."