Published on 25 February 2016

Facebook have announced that the ‘like’ button will now include a drop-down menu of the following emotions: love, sad, anger, haha and wow. 
Facebook said it wanted to give users more authentic ways to quickly and easily respond to posts, whether they are sad, serious, funny or happy. Before emoji “Reactions,” users were often put in the awkward position of resorting to “liking” a post about a death or one that expressed frustration or disappointment, without distinction from how one would “like” an engagement photo. “Reactions” should solve this problem.

Facebook said it wanted to give users more authentic ways to quickly and easily respond to posts, whether they are sad, serious, funny or happy. Before emoji “Reactions,” users were often put in the awkward position of resorting to “liking” a post about a death or one that expressed frustration or disappointment, without distinction from how one would “like” an engagement photo. “Reactions” should solve this problem.
“We heard from people that they wanted more ways to express themselves on Facebook,” said Facebook product manager Sammi Krug. “When people come to Facebook, they share all kinds of different things, things that make them sad, things that make them happy, thought-provoking, angry. We kept hearing from people that they didn’t have a way to express empathy.”