The heart's reign of terror as the only emoji-based reaction to a tweet may be coming to an end. Twitter user _Ninji noticed the ability to select multiple emoji from the heart, including the frown, the grimace, the party noisemaker, and the 100. "I can't believe they're finally letting me (100) tweets," _Ninji wrote. A screenshot showed three full tabs of possible reactions. In response to questions from The Verge, the user said the emoji reactions were part of a developer build accessed through a jailbroken version of the app, and that the feature seemed far from complete.
I can't believe they're finally letting me tweets (The best part is that it's not even a joke, I just found this…) pic.twitter.com/cyJ6Lmfhgx
— xX_Ninji_1994_Xx (@_Ninji) November 16, 2015
The sticker-like emoji reactions appear to be direct descendants of the emoji on Path. More recently, Slack introduced a feature letting users comment on any post with any emoji, and Facebook is following suit with a more limited range of reactions. For Twitter, expanded reactions could help users express themselves more easily and appropriately — one criticism of the introduction of hearts was that they could strike the wrong tone in cases where a tweet expressed something terrible or upsetting. On the other hand, new emoji add additional complexity to Twitter at a time when the company is striving to make itself simpler and more accessible to new users.
Twitter had this to say — I'm embedding the tweet since emoji wreak havoc on our publishing system:
I asked Twitter for comment about emoji reactions and this is their literal statement, in full:
— Casey Newton (@CaseyNewton) November 16, 2015
This article has been updated to include Twitter's comment, such as it is.