Among all the glitches and controversies plaguing Facebook in recent months, this one hardly registers. But it seems strange nonetheless. Some Facebook users were able to react to their friends’ posts with an airplane emoji on Tuesday.
The airplane reaction only appeared on Android phones, and even then it involved some effort to find. Users had to update their Facebook app and then hold down the like button in the comment section of a post, then find an extra angry emoji. Selecting that emoji called up the plane reaction, according to a user on Reddit.
Contacted by Fast Company, Facebook said the plane was a bug, not a feature. “This was created as part of an employee hackathon and wasn’t cleared for takeoff,” a company spokesperson told the site.
It’s not clear how long the plane reaction will remain available, but it stirred up a certain amount of interest while it lasted.
