Twitter teases Facebook-Esque Emoji reactions

In yet another example from Twitter timing functions of its direct competitors, the company announced that it will be testing emoji reactions for users across Turkey over the next few weeks with a possible wider rollout if all goes well. According to the company, the new emoji list is meant to help people “express themselves quickly in Twitter conversations,” in cases where a simple crushing of the Like button won’t suffice.

For a limited time, the company explained, Turkish tweeters will be able to access four more reactions in addition to the big red heart the company has deployed. back in 2015. This includes a pensive emoji (for tweets that make you think), sad emoji (for tweets that make you sad), laugh / cry emoji (for tweets that make you laugh / cry), and a … clapping emoji (presumably for congratulatory tweets). Depending on how users respond to this little quiz, Twitter may exchange different emojis or deploy these capabilities to other countries in the future.

All things considered, Twitter is relatively late for the emoji game – the company has only rolled out reactions for Twitter DMs. Last year, months after Linkedin first gave its users the power to react to the publications of other Linkedin users, and years after facebook do the same. It should also be noted that of these three, Facebook is the only one with the courage to include an “anger” reaction in their list. Even though Twitter causes a lot of us feel like throwing our laptops out the window in pure unbridled anger, the faces Twitter has chosen for its own emoji slots are kind, caring, and compassionate. Leaving a tearful face on a bile-laden political meme doesn’t have the same bite as leaving a bright red 😡.

Twitter has actually started officially planning to roll out a wider variety of emoji, including a side-eyed emoji, party hat, and a bright “100” readout –back in 2015, but canceled those tests soon after. This slimmer emoji list, according to Twitter, was born out of the company’s attempt to “find emoji that are universally recognizable and represent what people want to express about Tweets.”

To figure this out, Twitter conducted polls, looked at commonly used emojis on the site, and tried to determine the “top emotions” tweeters wanted to express on the site across different cultures. Among these emotions, by twitter, were “joy”, “interest”, “sadness”, “agreement” and “curiosity”, which gives us the list we see in Turkey right now. “Frustration” and “anger” were apparently also on the list, but were not selected; apparently due to the company’s attempts to keep users away toxic Twitter convos that we know and hate. But depending on how this test is received, who knows, maybe we’ll see some middle finger reactions on our flows sometimes in the future.