Facebook introduced Reactions on the second half of last year of which was actually revealed by Mark Zuckerberg in a Town Hall meeting. It was an extension to the Like button which had become limited in allowing people to show various emotions to posts they view on their News Feed.
The introduction of Reactions have changed how we react to various content on Facebook where we can love, show laughter, shock, sadness or anger towards a posts. They have been included in Live Video where you can show your reaction to the broadcast in addition to commenting on it.
It seems now Facebook is expanding the feature set for the reactions where one Sharma discovered one while combing through Facebook’s code:
Facebook testing 'Thankful' (flower emoji) reaction? 'Yay' and 'Confused' are no more. Source: Facebook page source) pic.twitter.com/32MmoJWHtF
— Sreedev Sharma (@sreedevsharma) May 5, 2016
The new Reaction is “Thankful” which is a purple flower emoji that is used to symbolize Mother’s day which will be observed this coming Sunday. In addition, if you check on the code, the reaction emojis “confused” and “yay” were “depressed” meaning they will not be visible. The Verge also obtained a statement from the company about the new change:
To celebrate Mother’s Day, we are testing the ability for people in a few markets to leave a flower reaction.
The company did not specify which markets that will receive the new reaction but this is the start of an interesting move by the company in offering temporary reactions. They have treaded on this route before where they offered temporary photos during the Paris tragedy and LGBT ruling in the US. We could see more temporary reactions in the future which could be tied to a specific even in the calendar, just like how Google does it with their Google Doodles.
