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.
MUST SEE: Man buys $700 battery, discovers it’s just $30 worth of batteries stuffed in a big case
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…
