WhatsApp finally introduces the long-awaited emoji reactions for messages and Zuckerberg himself announces the WhatsApp emojis on Facebook:

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Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg personally announced the news on his Facebook profile.

After that, the roll-out, the introduction of the new message reactions, began yesterday. As can be seen from the reactions, the innovation has been enthusiastically received by the Facebook community.

The ability to add emojis to messages is already standard on other networks. Signal, but also Meta's own messenger, score points with their small symbols that make communication with each other more personal.

The first indications of the impending introduction were provided by a beta version from the end of March, which already included this feature. Six different emojis were then tested: the thumbs up, a heart, a surprised, laughing and sad emoji, as well as the grateful hand gesture. ( HERE ) These are also the six emojis Zuckerberg used in his announcement.

Where is the advantage?

Until now, a reaction to a message could only be achieved by immediately replying to the message with an emoji. For many chat participants, this is sometimes a very confusing method of expressing agreement or disagreement. In the future, it will be enough to long-press a message and then select the one you want from the emoji selection bar that opens and click on it. This means that there are not many different messages between each other, each of which triggers notifications to the recipients depending on the settings. With the update, all reactions are clearly shown below the message that was reacted to.

WhatsApp explains in a blog post that the new reactions are intended to make it possible to react to messages in a humorous way without supporting the flood of information in the chats ( HERE ).

Unusual emoji

With the grateful hands, WhatsApp is starting with different emojis than those usual on the partner platform Facebook, for example. Not without ulterior motives.

According to Zuckerberg, the grateful hands are intended to spread the idea of ​​gratitude and appreciation.

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It is noticeable that this emoji, which has a positive connotation, replaces the angry smiley that is used on Facebook.

Mark Zuckerberg also announced that the six emojis mentioned are just the beginning and that more reactions can be expected in the near future.

It is still unclear when exactly the emojis will arrive in Europe.

More new features in the update

Another improvement in WhatsApp's new update is the doubling of the maximum size of chat groups from 256 members to 512 . These are also secured by end-to-end encryption.

In addition, messages with a total size of two GB can now be transferred . This is a significant increase compared to the previous size limit of 100 MB. However, WhatsApp recommends using WiFi to transfer such very large files. As a service, a counter with the remaining transfer time will be displayed during the upload and download.

Conclusion

The new WhatsApp update brings a feature that users have particularly longed for: message reactions, or WhatsApp emojis. After the update, users will be able to tag messages with six different emojis to express an emotional reaction immediately to the message. According to Mark Zuckerberg, the “grateful hands” are intended to spread the idea of ​​gratitude and appreciation. Other news includes the expansion of chat groups to a maximum of 512 users and a significant expansion of the maximum size of transferable files from 100 MB to 2 GB.

Related to the topic: Beware of WhatsApp scams


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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )