From Love And Laughter To Sadness, Facebook Tests Emoticons In Spain, Ireland

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Facebook is testing out a new way for users to express themselves with emojis called "Reactions."

The "Reactions" pop up when a user presses down hard on the "Like" button.

The six reactions appear as animated emoticons and include love, laughter, happiness, shock, sadness, and anger.

Mark Zuckerberg announced back in September at a public Q&A that the social media network felt it was important to give people more options than just "Like."

The Facebook CEO explained that users for years had asked about the possibility of a "Dislike" button, according to a clip posted on TechCrunch.com.

"It took us awhile to get here because we didn't want to just build a 'Dislike' button because we don't want to turn Facebook into a forum where people are voting up or down on people's posts," he said.

He went on to explain that the site wanted to give people other ways to express empathy.

"Not every moment is a good moment," he said. "I do think that it is important to give people more options than just 'Like' as a quick way to emote and share with a feeling on their post."

The "Reactions" are being tested in Spain and Ireland.

The company plans to take user feedback and make improvements before possibly rolling them out in the U.S.