Facebook Testing Out “Reactions,” a Solution to the “Dislike” Button

Facebook has begun rolling out its proposed solution to the “dislike” button: emoji. According to TechCrunch, Reactions is live in only two test markets (Ireland and Spain), and Facebook is still undecided on whether it should roll it out to everyone. The idea is that instead of two buttons–like and dislike–users will be able to choose from a marginally more granular spectrum of reactions.

A few weeks ago, Facebook said that they had begun work on a “dislike” button, which was to be a counterpart to the ubiquitous “like” button. However, Facebook took a bit of a left turn with Reactions, instead relying on what feel like oversized emoji to convey reactions and feelings towards a post. Again, this is still a feature just currently in test, and you can expect the chosen reactions to change a bit between now and if/when they go live to the world.

Looking at the sample photo, it almost looks like they’re taking a page out of BuzzFeed’s book, with its oversized LOL / CUTE / EWW stickers. They’re supposed to stack up at the bottom where you’d usually see your number of “likes” and comments. Don’t expect to be able to turn them off once they go live–like so many of Facebook’s rollouts, once you’ve got it, you’ve got it. There’s no turning back. Prepare yourselves, folks.

The complaint posts are coming.

(via WIRED)

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Jessica Lachenal

Jessica Lachenal is a writer who doesn’t talk about herself a lot, so she isn’t quite sure how biographical info panels should work. But here we go anyway. She's the Weekend Editor for The Mary Sue, a Contributing Writer for The Bold Italic (thebolditalic.com), and a Staff Writer for Spinning Platters (spinningplatters.com). She's also been featured in Model View Culture and Frontiers LA magazine, and on Autostraddle. She hopes this has been as awkward for you as it has been for her.

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