Twitter is testing the option to react to a tweet with a variety of emoji icons.
The company is first piloting the feature in Turkey before considering a wider rollout to other regions. “Because a Like doesn’t always capture all the feels, we’ve added a range of emoji including 😂 , 🤔 , 👏 , 😢,” the company said in a statement.
The emoji will arrive alongside the standard ❤️ or Like reaction. To access them, a user in Turkey must long-press the Like button, which will generate the whole range of emoji reactions.
(Twitter)
The feature promises to make the social media platform more like Facebook, which already lets users react to a post with similar emoji icons. However, Twitter has notably decided to exclude the angry emoji 😡 to help keep conversations civil.
“We identified ‘entertained’ and ‘curious’ as the top emotions people feel when reading Tweet,” the company explained. “Although ‘frustration’ and ‘anger’ are also common emotions people feel while reading Tweets, and some people want to express disagreement with Tweets, we’re not incorporating these as emoji reactions right now. Our goal is always to support healthy public conversation and we want to see how our current set of emoji will impact conversations.”
The company selected the four emoji icons because they “resonate globally” among a variety of cultures, citing user surveys and research into the emoji most often tweeted. Twitter is also hopeful the feature will create more positive vibes over a platform infamous for harassment and toxic conversations.
“Reactions give people more ways to quickly show how they feel in conversations, while also giving those Tweeting a better understanding of how their Tweets are received, which could potentially lead to improved expression and participation in the public conversation,” the company added.
