Facebook’s New Heart-Hugging Emoji Represents Coronavirus Solidarity

In response to the coronavirus pandemic, Facebook is adding a seventh emoji to its reaction options: Care. This one depicts our favorite yellow friend hugging a heart, and, when used in Facebook Messenger, the little guy vibrates.

Facebook’s reactions (the emojis that pop up when the Like button is held down) are much more than they seem on the surface. The company created them after extensive research into the most common, short responses people tend to have to posts on their news feeds. They’re convenient for us Facebook users, in that they stop our comment threads from being filled with entire posts that simply say “Lol” or “That’s sad,” but they’re good for Facebook as a platform too. As one would expect, Facebook uses data from these reactions to further curate people’s news feeds (and better serve them ads).

USA Today reports that Haha, Like, Sad, Angry, Wow, and Heart will soon be joined by the Care reaction. The decision is inspired by the trend of coronavirus solidarity and social distancing. According to the head of the Facebook app, Fidji Simo, users have requested and suggested a hug reaction for years now but it made more sense these days, during a pandemic, to roll out such a representation of compassion.

While this seventh emoji might be temporary, that may not be a bad thing since its purpose is to give people a way of showing support for others struggling to adapt to the effects of COVID-19. Simo says they’ll monitor the frequency and intention of the emoji’s use in determining its staying power. Facebook has had other temporary reactions in the past, usually themed around holidays or other events, so it made more sense that those were temporary (the 50th anniversary of Star Trek reactions, understandably, didn’t last forever). Simo’s comments that the team will monitor “whether this reaction is really specific to the moment in time that we are going through or if it’s more evergreen“, imply that Care will stick around if we… care enough. It’s already easy to envision it being used as part of Facebook’s algorithms to gauge how users feel about charitable causes and things like GoFundMe, for example.

Some users may have access to the new Care reaction already, but the rollout is still in progress. It will eventually be available on the Facebook website, the mobile versions of the app, and all versions of Facebook Messenger, but it’ll start on Messenger. Anecdotal reports show some people already have access to it.

Source: USA Today

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