Facebook's new emojis were introduced Wednesday, allowing users to express a range of emotion beyond the iconic "Like."
"Not every moment you want to share is happy,"
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in an original post.
"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."
With the introduction of what Zuckerberg called "Reactions," users can now express love, laughter, surprise, sadness, or anger.
With the exception of love, which is represented by a heart, each emotion is represented by a classic yellow emoticon with cartoon expressions.
"Love is the most popular reaction so far, which feels about right to me!" Zuckerberg wrote.
Instagram users are already familiar with the heart icon, which has powered the mobile social network since long before Facebook purchased it for $1 billion in April of 2012.
Twitter also took a liking to the heart symbol late last year, and replaced its "Favorite" button, which was previously represented by a yellow star icon, with the "Like" button, represented by a red heart.
On desktop computers, users can find the new emoticons by hovering over the traditional "Like" button, at which time a new menu will appear. On mobile, users must press and hold the "Like" button to bring up the emojis.
Introducing Reactions
Today is our worldwide launch of Reactions -- the new Like button with more ways to express yourself. 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. I've spent a lot of time thinking about the right way to do this with our team. One of my goals was to make it as simple as pressing and holding the Like button. 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!
Posted by Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday, February 24, 2016
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