Facebook Emoji Reactions Rolling Out to More Countries

Facebook in October last year started testing a new feature that let users post emoji-based Reactions, announced in an attempt to give users more options than just the often inappropriate 'Like'. The feature was only available to users in Spain and Ireland. The social media giant has however since been rolling out the feature to more countries worldwide.

Facebook, in the same month when it brought the emoji responses to Spain and Ireland, rolled it out to Chile, and to Portugal and the Philippines in November. Now, the company is further expanding the reach of Reactions emojis by introducing it in the sixth country - Japan.

"I'm in Tokyo today to announce the rollout of Reactions in Japan, our sixth country, along with six new Japanese publishing partners for Instant Articles. We're excited to see how these features get used in Japan, a culture we all learn from in how to communicate visually," posted Chris Cox, the Chief Product Officer on his Facebook account on Thursday.

Although Facebook has not mentioned where it will bring the feature next, it is expected that the emoji-based Reactions will soon reach more countries as well.

The emoji-based Reactions show: "love," "yay," "wow," "haha," "sad," and "angry," and are similar to regular emojis used in chat.

Facebook rival Twitter also took couple of steps forward in the same department. The microblogging website introduced super-sized emojis in its Direct Messages feature. The 'super-sized emojis' would be visible in both mobile and desktop versions. However, the emoji would stay the same size as before when used along with text. "Emojis are already a big deal in Direct Messages. We just made them bigger. Send super-sized emojis today!" said the firm.