New Facebook reactions arrive – but where’s the dislike button?

New Facebook reactions arrive – but where's the dislike button?

Facebook users have been crying out for dislike button since what feels like the beginning of time.

And finally, the day came when Facebook head honcho Mark Zuckerberg revealed to the world that the social network was, in fact, working on some 'Reactions' to give users a different option besides 'liking' statuses and photos.

And as of today, Facebook users now have access to a total of six 'Reactions'.

"Every day, people come to Facebook to discover what's happening in their world and around the world, and to share all kinds of things, whether that's updates that are happy, sad, funny or thought-provoking," explains Sammi Krug, Facebook product manager.

"We've been listening to people and know that there should be more ways to easily and quickly express how something you see in News Feed makes you feel.

The Reactions are extensions of Facebook's Like button, to give users more ways to share their reactions to a post in a quick and easy way.

To add a Reaction, users need to hold down the Like button on mobile or hover over the Like button on desktop to see the Reaction image options, then tap either Like, Love, Haha, Wow, Sad or Angry.

"We understand that this is a big change, and want to be thoughtful about rolling this out," Krug says.

Krug says Facebook has been conducting global research for more than a year, including focus groups and surveys, to determine what types of reactions people would want to use most.

"We also looked at how people are already commenting on posts and the top stickers and emoticons as signals for the types of reactions people are already using to determine which Reactions to offer.

The Reactions are available to al Facebook users around the world as of today.