Introducing Reactions, Facebook's solution to the 'dislike button' problem
Company gives thumbs down to single 'dislike' button
Facebook has revamped its "like" feature with six new icons —and like it or not, the long-rumoured "dislike" button isn't one of them.
The social network is launching a pilot test of a feature called "Reactions," a set of symbols designed to let users express a range of emotions beyond its standard "like" feature.
Chris Cox, chief product officer at Facebook, confirmed the news in a post on Thursday.
The new symbols are called "love, haha, yay, wow, sad, and angry," and can be selected by pressing the "like" button on Android, iPhone and desktop devices — though not yet on Messenger or other Facebook products, TechCrunch reports.
These emojis come in response to calls for a "dislike" button, which company founder Mark Zuckerberg hinted might be in the works back in September.
For now, Facebook is testing Reactions in Ireland and Spain, where users often have large international friend networks according to Adam Mosseri, Facebook's director of product. In Spain, Facebook plans to test how the wordless characters work with non-English speakers as well.
The company intends to introduce Reactions to all of its users soon, but in the meantime you can check out a video of the feature here.