Facebook Messenger Video Chat Gets Animated Reactions, New Masks and Filters

Facebook Messenger has a video call feature, and in order to promote its use the social media giant has added more features to make the feature more attractive than before. Among new additions to the video chat feature in Facebook Messenger app, there are animated reactions, as well as new masks and filters likely to appeal to younger audiences.

Starting with animated reactions, Facebook Messenger users can utilise one of the five emoji icons to express their emotions like love, laughter, surprise, sadness, or anger. "These reactions will animate onto the screen and then disappear, so you can express yourself in the moment," Facebook said in its news post. Interestingly, the company says that these reactions will present themselves in different versions depending on whether your face is on or off the screen.

Facebook has now introduced video filters that will allow users to talk with each other while being coloured in a different tone than usual. "Choose from a variety of filters, ranging from subtle lighting tweaks to bold colour changes - like black and white, red, or yellow," says Facebook. Notably, the live preview feature allows users to test the filters on themselves before other people see the filter in action.

While masks have already been available in the Messenger for some time, Facebook has added some new mask options and also introduced new effects to make video chats lively. "Unlike reactions, masks and effects stay on the screen for the duration of the video chat (or until you take them off or switch to another one)," the company said.

Finally, taking screenshots while on video chats has now been made simple as users can press the round button in the middle during one-to-one or group calls to capture screens in Messenger app. Users can choose to either share these screenshots directly to social media or just save the pictures to gallery instead.

Let us know in comments down below if you are excited about the prospect of using the new features or not