Twitter surveys users about Facebook-style emoji reactions

When Jane Manchun Wong discovered last year that Twitter was testing Facebook-like reactions, the social network said it was leftover code from a previous experiment and that it’s not currently working on the feature. It looks like the company has picked the project back up since then, because some users are getting surveys asking them to pick between several different emoji reaction sets. When asked about the survey, a spokesperson told TechCrunch: “We’re exploring additional ways for people to express themselves in conversations happening on Twitter.”

Image credit: @WFBrother

While some of the reaction options remain consistent across the proposed sets, Twitter is considering several options for the others. The “Awesome” reaction could either be a surprised face or the “fire” emoji, for instance. Meanwhile, it seems like the social network is looking at three possibilities for the Agree and Disagree reactions: a thumbs up and down combo, a Yes and No one and another combination that looks like Reddit’s upvote and downvote buttons. 

The survey also includes questions asking them how they would use the Angry and/or Dislike/Downvote reactions if Twitter ever adds one. Users can pick from several choices, including being uncomfortable and feeling judged if their tweets get Angry/Dislike reacts and hesitating to use Twitter if the reactions exist. Twitter’s reaction set for DMs has thumbs up and down options, but users may not be OK with being Disliked or Downvoted in public, after all. The final emojis Twitter decides to use may be an entirely different set — if the company decides to push through with expanding reactions on the platform, that is.