Facebook Won’t Force You to ‘Like’ Dead Pets Anymore

Facebook lets you experience such emotions as “Love,” “Sad,” “Angry,” “Haha,” and “Wow”

Facebook's expanded reaction buttons
Facebook

Facebook may seem a lot more emotional today.

The company has expanded on its Like button to offer cute dancing pictograms for feels like “Love,” “Sad,” “Angry,” “Haha,” and “Wow.”

That means no more “liking” your friends’ updates about pets that passed away.

After testing the new markers in select countries, Facebook will now let any of its almost 1.6 billion monthly users choose from a wider range of emotions to offer quick emoji commentary.

As social networks have evolved into places where billions of people share myriad facets of their daily lives, companies like Facebook have wrangled with how to accommodate more nuanced conversations.

“We’ve been listening to people and know that there should be more ways to easily and quickly express how something you see in News Feed makes you feel,” said Facebook product manager Sammi Krug, in a post announcing the change. The “Reactions” buttons “give you more ways to share your reaction to a post in a quick and easy way.”

To add a reaction, users just need to hold down the Like thumbs-up button or hover over the thumbs-up button on desktop to see the reaction-image options.

Your News Feed, however, may not change much. Facebook said the algorithms that decide what posts bubble up in your feed highest won’t distinguish between something that gets a Like, a Love or any other of the reactions. If you comment on something, Facebook will assume you want to see more content like it. Even if it makes you “Sad.”

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