Instagram Direct Messages Will Soon Get Reaction Feature to Express Emotions

Since its inception, Facebook has played around with its social media networking service to bring new features every now and then. Back in 2016, the social networking giant introduced reaction features allowing users to express emotions on the posts and comments. It seems like the same feature is now making its way to the company’s owned photo-sharing platform Instagram. As per the new report, the company is now working on the reaction feature for Instagram’s Direct Messages tab.

As of now, the only reaction that users can play within the DM is the heart icon that can be used by simply double-tapping the message. A reverse engineering maestro that goes by the name Jane Manchun Wong recently tweeted leaking the new feature. In the tweet, you can see a gif showing off the new feature. It is worth mentioning that this feature is currently in the testing stage. As you can see, there are numerous reactions to choose from such as ‘thumbs-up’,’thumbs-down’, ‘laughing’, ‘angry’ and ‘sad’.

As of now, the feature is available only for employees for the internal testing purposes. Once the testing stage is finished, the feature should roll out to the general public. Further adding to the tweet, Jane reported that Facebook’s Tech Comms Manager Alexandru Voica has also confirmed the existence of such a feature. He also confirms that it is indeed in the testing phase as of now. For those who’re unaware, a similar feature has already made its way to Twitter.

Instagram is also working on a new feature that goes by the name of Reels. The feature will sit between the Boomerang and Super-Zoom camera mode. It is basically a TikTok’s clone and is currently available only in Brazil. With this feature, users will be able to make lip-sync videos that they can then send in DMs, upload to my stories and more.