Remember how we told you Facebook is coming out with a dislike button? Remember feeling a tinge of panic that people could now publicly “dislike” your carefully crafted posts? Today, Chris Cox, Facebook’s chief product officer, announced that the dislike button we were expecting is actually a set of buttons called “Reactions.”
These emoji-like buttons will allow us to express a variety of feelings toward a post—none of them explicitly a “dislike” expression, but rather a broader array of emotions. You’ll be able to hover over the like button to choose another one of these buttons. We actually think this is a great idea—It definitely always felt weird “liking” a post about someone’s pet that passed away.
The company is testing Reactions in Ireland and Spain right now, so we don’t know when the feature will be rolled out to the rest of us. You can watch the full Facebook announcement below:
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.
Posted by Chris Cox on Thursday, October 8, 2015