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Original poster

Laugh reaction disappeared?

77 replies

Mareleine · 02/06/2025 10:25

Hi so I reported my own post earlier (as per your instructions on this) because someone (obviously not me on my own post) had used a nasty mocking "laugh" emoji on my serious post. I even named the poster who had done it.

In the last hour, my own laugh reaction on posts has been removed. I have not used the laugh emoji to mock anyone.

Has someone mixed something up or has the laugh reaction been removed for everyone overnight? I'm hoping it's the latter because it's obviously being used to bully people and I've seen numerous threads on this before it happened to me.

OP posts:
BluebellCrocus · 02/06/2025 12:47

MrsMitford3 · 02/06/2025 12:43

I have never used it to mock someone, but do use it on a long running word association thread when posters are funny. I like it.

I am perplexed that since no one else can see it but the poster that it causes such an extreme response.
Plenty of people pile on posters with words-how is a "mocking" emoji more problematic? It doesn't cause a pile on because no one can see it.

It feels very sanitising and unnecessary to remove it.

Just do a laughing emoji on a post instead. You can still use the laughing emoji. You haven't lost anything. Only difference is if someone is using it in a mocking way when someone is struggling everyone can now see them doing it and call them out.

Original poster
Mareleine · 02/06/2025 12:47

C8H10N4O2 · 02/06/2025 12:39

That's why moderated sites ban the perpetrators of poor behaviour not the victims of it

Which in this case would be banning or suspending people misusing the emoji, not removing the feature entirely from the site.

People on line talking about social rules invariably mean “my interpretation of” social rules IME. On a public forum people will have genuinely different viewpoints on this, each with good reason.

I hope MN do come back on this because I’d be interested to know if it really is being used maliciously regularly, the extent of misuse or if its just a few users who need reminding/banning. I’d be interested to know how many people complaining have actually experienced genuine malicious use rather than objecting to the potential of malicious use that justified global removal of the feature rather than a more nuanced response (such as permitting in some topics, restricting use from new users etc).

I use emojis a lot to signal agreement or appreciation where I have no actual content to add. I don’t like adding “agree” or “funny” along with 50 other posters all saying the same thing - its just adding noise at that point

OTOH I also don’t see why emojis can’t be public with usernames.

Show quote history

Have you not considered that they've had to take action so much over people misusing it that they've just removed it to save themselves the bother?

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