Twitter to implement Emoji tweet reactions

Facebook and Twitter have been borrowing ideas off each other for some time now whether that be in the form of UI changes or the general look and feel. This time, it’s Twitter’s turn to enable a feature that Facebook has been pushing for some time – Emoji reactions.

App researcher Jane Manchun Wong posted a screenshot of what looks like ‘Twitter reactions’ which include laughing and shocked emojis amongst other options that accompany the traditional retweet and retweet with comment selections. There also seems to be a new option to ‘React with Fleet’ which is a reference to Twitter’s time-sensitive tweets that disappear similar to that of Snapchat stories.

Twitter is working on Tweet Reactions…? pic.twitter.com/3Sb6c8cYe3

— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) June 10, 2020

This isn’t the first time Twitter has had a play around with emoji reactions and with the introduction of the ‘turn off replies’ function that recently came into effect, it could be a food alternative to gauge engagement and offer something a little more than just a ‘like’.

This is a leak somewhat and there’s no guarantee that Twitter will actually release the ‘reactions’ functionality but with the changes to the replies, we think its certainly on the cards for the near future.

Would you use Twitter reactions if they did come into effect? We think it’s personally a good move and one that will definitely be embraced by those who are currently using it on Facebook. Moreover, as we’ve previously stated, with a lot of people turning off their replies to tweets, it’s a way to receive some tweet feedback without having to sift through a bunch of messages.