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TECHNOLOGY A23
Thursday 25 February 2016

Facebook’s ‘like’ button gets ‘angry’ and ‘sad’ as friends

ANICK JESDANUN In this Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016 photo taken in New York, Julie Zhuo, product design director at Facebook, demonstrates the new
AP Technology Writer emoji-like stickers customers will be able to press in addition to the like button.
NEW YORK (AP) — Face-
book’s “like” button isn’t Associated Press
going away, but it’s about
to get some company. a full frown or a half frown? tested, people used the al- ple. If you don’t update ing those from groups and
Facebook has been test- Facebook ultimately chose ternatives more frequently your app, you’ll just see the brands. A company won’t
ing alternatives to “like” these six reactions for their over time. number of likes. be able to block the ability
in about a half-dozen universal appeal — some- ___ ___ to mark its posts with anger.
countries, including Ire- thing that could be under- HOW TO GET STARTED A HAPPY BIAS? ___
land, Spain and Japan. stood around the world. The rollout is expected to Facebook has a complex IT TOOK A YEAR TO DEVEL-
On Wednesday, it will start Even a generic happy face take a few days to com- formula for deciding which OP
making “haha,” ‘’angry” “was a little bit ambiguous plete. You’ll get the fea- of your friends’ posts are Why so long? Besides de-
and three other responses and harder for people to ture automatically on Web more prominent. Ones ciding on how many and
available in the U.S. and understand,” Zhuo says. browsers, but you’ll need that get a lot of likes, for in- which specific reactions to
the rest of the world. Each reaction comes with to update your app on stance, will tend to show up offer, Facebook needed to
In changing a core part of an animated emoji, such iPhones and Android de- higher. Now, posts marked figure out the right way for
Facebook — the 7-year- as the thumbs up for “like” vices (no word yet on Win- “angry” or “wow” will bump people to discover and use
old “like” button has be- and a heart for “love.” dows and BlackBerry). up, too. it.
come synonymous with the These emojis will look the Facebook already shows But Facebook wants to For instance, a menu might
social network — the com- same around the world, how many people like a show what it thinks you’re have been harder to find,
pany said it tried to keep but phrases such as “love” post and lets you tap or most interested in — and while offering all six buttons
things familiar. The thumbs- will be translated. click on the count for a list that might ultimately mean up front might have made
up “like” button will look ___ of people. mostly happy posts, rather it harder to just quickly “like”
just as it long has, without “LIKE” STILL TAKES CENTER With Reactions, you see than ones that evoke sad- a post and move on. Zhuo
the other choices clutter- STAGE how many people have ness or anger. Zhuo says says CEO Mark Zuckerberg
ing the screen or confusing Zhuo says people click on reacted in some way, Facebook will tweak its for- pushed for the long-press
people. You have to hold “like” more than a billion along with the top three mulas based on how peo- method as a balance.
that button for a second or times a day, so “we didn’t reactions, such as “love” ple respond. The feature is expected
two for the alternatives to want to make that any followed by “haha” and ___ to evolve over time, and
pop up. harder.” It’s still the go-to “wow.” You can get break- EXPRESS THAT ANGER Facebook may add or
Here are seven things to reaction for most posts. But downs for each reaction — These alternative reactions change choices based on
know about Facebook’s Zhuo says in the countries the total and specific peo- are for all posts, includ- feedback.q
latest feature, known as
Reactions.
___
WHAT’S NOT TO LIKE?
When a friend posts that his
father has died, or a cous-
in gets frustrated with her
morning commute, hitting
“like” might seem insensi-
tive. Users have long re-
quested a “dislike” button,
but that was deemed too
negative and problematic.
Are you disliking the death
or the call for sympathy?
Facebook chose to offer
more nuanced reactions
— “love,” ‘’haha,” ‘’wow,”
‘’sad” and “angry” —
alongside “like” — to give
users “greater control over
their expressivity,” says Julie
Zhuo, Facebook’s product
design director.
___
WHY THESE CHOICES
Facebook went through
comments on friends’
posts, as well as emoji-like
stickers people were using.
It chose the most common
ones and tested those.
Facebook considered doz-
ens of reactions — but of-
fering them all would have
been confusing. Think of
having to flip through pag-
es and pages of emojis: Do
you want one wink, a tear,