Ah, the dislike button. The feature that everybody has been requesting from Facebook for years now has finally come, even if it’s not in the form you probably expected. Per TechCrunch, Facebook Messenger is now allowing select users the ability to ‘react’ to individual messages in a Facebook messenger convo, like we’ve been able to do on statuses for about a year now, and it looks like a ‘thumbs down’ is one of the available emojis.
While not yet available to the general public, select users have been given the ability to now ‘react’ to messages by hovering over an individual message. The reaction emojis are similar to the ones available on statuses with the added addition of the thumbs down which may come across as the emoji symbol for ‘dislike’ since the thumbs up has traditionally been used to represent ‘like’ on the platform.
According to Facebook however, the button is more an indicative of a ‘no’, hence the thumbs down, rather than a straight ‘dislike.’ Though this likely won’t stop most people from using it that way. In a statement to TechCrunch, they indicated that the feature was to make the app more ‘fun and engaging.’
“We’re always testing ways to make Messenger more fun and engaging. This is a small test where we enable people to share an emoji that best represents their feelings on a message.”
While Facebook might see it as an easy button response to ‘no,’ Messenger users lucky enough to have been given the option will probably see it as the direct ‘dislike’ button that Facebook has been lacking for years now. And for those still yearning for the ability to go around ‘disliking’ things on your News Feed, it looks like you’ll have to just stick to the angry reacts and keep waiting in the meantime
H/T: TechCrunch
