Sometimes you see a news article in your Facebook news feed, and you want to express empathy. The story might be about a tragedy or crime.

You don't quite feel like you have anything to add in the form of a comment, yet the traditional "Like" button just doesn't feel right.

Facebook have been working on some options other than the "Like" button for some time, and they're finally rolling it out.

You can now choose between 6 emotions to 'react' to a post; Like, Love, Haha, Wow, Sad and Angry.

Notably absent is the much requested 'dislike' button. The reason behind this is that Facebook don't really want to give you a button to attack the poster, just different ways of empathising with the content posted.

Here's an example.

We posted a shared a story on a robbery that occurred recently in Geraldton. You may have seen the story, and wanted to express to Facebook that "I am glad this story is published and it's content makes me angry."

You could press "like" so Facebook knows to show this post to more people, and that you want to see more posts like this. Some of us do that already, and 63 people hit the 'Like' button on this one. But judging from the comments and the even larger number of 'shares' this post invoked an emotion a lot closer to 'anger' in most readers.

To choose a different 'reaction' just hover your mouse over the 'Like' button for a second, and the other choices will appear. On a touch screen device, hold down the like button and the other reactions will appear. The video below shows how it works.