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The feature will let users send reactions to Instagram Messages similar to those currently available on Facebook’s Messenger app.
The feature was discovered by reverse engineer Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) who posted a demo of the same on her Twitter account.
“Instagram is working on Reactions for Direct Messages. Currently, “non-employees can only see the reaction” Facebook’s Tech Comms Manager @alexvoica confirmed this unreleased feature and this is “something they’ve been testing for a few days,” Wong tweeted.
The news was confirmed by Facebook’s Tech Comms Manager Alexandru Voica(@alexvoica) who also shared the tweet on his account.
Wong further mentioned that although she had just made the discovery, the social media platform had been working on the feature since October 2019.
“Although it’s true that Instagram has recently started testing DM reactions internally with employees, Instagram has been working on it since late October 2019, about a week after I tweeted about Twitter working on DM Reactions,” Wong said.
Wong had earlier been able to reverse-engineer Twitter’s latest feature as well before it was released.
The micro-blogging platform the following suit after Facebook’s reactions features for DM had recently released its latest feature allowing users to send emoji reactions for direct messages on Twitter.
The key difference between Twitter emoji reactions and the of Facebook’s is that the platform has replaced the heart eyes and angry emoji with that of heart and fire reaction options according to a report by Entrepreneur India.
Facebook's upcoming security feature
Facebook is also working on a security feature for its Android app by enabling users to create a security key support through FIDO2 with on-device biometrics.
Voica confirmed the news with clarification regarding the collection of biometric data. Facebook would not be collecting any bio-metrics data but will increase account security using the key.
“Great find! We’re always testing new ways to help people strengthen their account security. For this authentication feature, we would not collect any biometrics and only receive confirmation from the device that the person logging in is the person who registered the key,” Voica had said.
As for the Instagram DM reactions, the feature is still being tested. There has been no update in terms of when the social media platform would be rolling out this feature.
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