Facebook(FB) Rolls Out Reactions Button Globally: you can now express love, laughter, surprise, sadness or anger Wednesday February 24,2016

 

Feeling outraged, tickled or touched by something you spotted on Facebook? Now you can say so, after the social media giant added five new reactions to its basic "like" button.

 

"Like, love, haha, wow, sad or angry" -- the expanded "reactions" feature rolled out globally on Wednesday  February 24,2016 is designed to let users show a range of emotions.

Notably absent from the new emoticons is a "dislike' button, something sought for years by Facebook users, but which has been ruled out by the California company to avoid a barrage of hateful expressions.

"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," Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said on his page, immediately drawing tens of thousands of "like," "love" and other expressions.

"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."

The reactions button currently doesn't appear to be rolled out to the web.

The new reactions buttons were unveiled in October 2015 as a test project for Facebook users in Spain and Ireland.

The new buttons became a quick topic of conversation on Facebook and other social networks, with the hashtag #dislikebutton used by its proponents.