Twitter is users how they would feel about Facebook-style emoji responses, such as a downvote or dislike choice.
Twitter will soon let users join Facebook-style emoji responses to articles, such as liking or disliking public tweets using a thumbs up or thumbs down emoji.
Surveying Folks About Emoji Reactions
The business was surveying many of its customers about an extensive collection of emoji responses for months now. The poll asks people how they would feel about a couple of distinct sets of light-hearted response emojis. Oddly enough, Twitter’s Chief Design Officer Dantley Davis recently told a client asking about emoji responses the “we will get something for you shortly.”
As a reminder, Twitter lately included a hub emoji to its lead messaging interface.
We’ll have something for you soon.
— Dantley Davis (@dantley) March 19, 2021
Apart from the typical suspects–a shouting face with tears, even a crying face, a believing face, an unpleasant encounter, a helpless face, and even more– even a few of those surveyed customers have reported viewing emoji reactions for either liking or disliking a conversation using a thumbs up or thumbs down.
A spokesperson has verified Twitter is “exploring other ways for folks to express themselves conversations” occurring on the stage. They also told The Verge the response emojis would exist along with the present heart icon instead of replacing it.
Per this survey I just took, Twitter is considering adding emoji reaction sets and downvoting. I think either of those might be what forces me off this site. pic.twitter.com/uEgtmrSk7F
— john d moore (@jdm0079) March 18, 2021
Based on TechCrunch, a few folks reported seeing another pair of like/dislike response emojis, including Reddit-like green-up red and arrow down arrow icons.
A Risky Move That Could Anger Users
Seeing how hot response emojis have already been with consumers’ Facebook and other social networks, Twitter may be onto something. On the flip side, the business learned the hard way as it replaced begins with hearts several decades ago that most of its clients strongly dislike big changes to the way they participate with tweets.
Asking folks how they are feeling about emoji-style responses is one thing. On the other hand, the actual litmus test will begin when the provider publicly starts rolling out the attribute. Twitter may even postpone the attribute or perhaps nix it completely should the poll prove that folks find the shift too extreme for their preferences.
Adding More Nuance to Tweets
At a minimum, this survey’s existence demonstrates Twitter is coming carefully, conscious that emoji reactions might not sit well with its customers. As an example, the poll asks respondents how they’d feel if their particular tweets were downvoted.
The answers provided include “I don’t like getting a negative response” to “I’d use the comments onto the conversation constructively to make betters tweets later on” into “I might hesitate to converse in the long run for fear of getting negative responses” and past.
However, you look at it; attracting Facebook-style response emoji into the stage is guaranteed to be controversial. Since Twitter users normally do not post anonymously, such as from the Reddit and YouTube linking segments, many may become fearful their people’s tweets can become downvoted.
And that alone may be sufficient to prompt Twitter to kill the intended attribute.
