Journalism of Courage
Facebook has finally rolled out alternatives to its good old Like button called Facebook Reactions. The social-media giant has already started rolling out the Reactions for users globally, it confirmed. These will be available for users on desktop and mobile apps. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckernerg announced the introduction of the new Reaction icons on the site. Facebook added the Reactions after a year's global research and focus groups and surveys to determine what types of reactions people would want to use most.
Facebook’s new reactions include: Like, Love, Haha, Wow, Sad or Angry. The Reactions are a result of users's demand for a Dislike button. Zuckerberg had however said no to a dislike button, since he thinks it does not go with the idea of how Facebook was imagined. He had said that they did not wish to turn the community on Facebook into one, where people could like or dislike or particular announcement.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote about the new reactions on the site, “Not every moment you want to share is happy. Sometimes you want to share something sad or frustrating. Our community has been asking for a dislike button for years, but not because people want to tell friends they don’t like their posts. People wanted to express empathy and make it comfortable to share a wider range of emotions.”
He goes on to say, “The result is Reactions, which allow you to express love, laughter, surprise, sadness or anger. Love is the most popular reaction so far, which feels about right to me!”
Users can easily add a reaction instead of the traditional Like button by holding down the Like button on mobile or hovering over the Like button on desktop. This will enable a tray with the six new reactions to pop up, and the user can then tap anyone of them.
Facebook, before adding the Reactions also looked at how people were already commenting on posts and the top stickers and emoticons as signals for the types of reactions people were already using to determine which reactions should be launched.
Now, that Facebook Reactions are launched, users will be able to express how they feel about a particular post more explicitly. This adds more fun to the whole Facebook experience and also makes it a more expressive platform.
Whatsapp recently announced addition of a whole new bunch of emoticons to its 'smileys' drawer. the new emojis include an upside down face, popcorn box, robot faces, a nerd face, an urn, turkey and even a middle finger emoji.
