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Apple

Thanks To Apple's Influence, You're Not Getting A Rifle Emoji (buzzfeed.com) 569

Charlie Warzel, reporting for BuzzFeed News: Unicode, the technical organization in charge of selecting and overseeing emojis, debated and ultimately decided to remove a rifle from its list of new emoji candidates in 2016, according to multiple persons who attended its quarterly meeting last May. The decision was led and championed by one of tech's biggest companies: Apple. Apple is one of Unicode's largest member companies and not only has voting rights, but also holds considerable influence. Millions of people use emojis on Apple's software platforms. According to sources in the room, Apple started the discussion to remove the rifle emoji, which had already passed into the encoding process for the Unicode 9.0 release this June. Apple told the consortium it would not support a rifle on its platforms and asked for it not to be made into an emoji. "I heard Apple speak up about it and also Microsoft," one member present at the discussions told BuzzFeed News.
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Thanks To Apple's Influence, You're Not Getting A Rifle Emoji

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  • frist post (Score:2, Insightful)

    It actually makes sense not to have such an emoji, because it creates a dilemma whether someone using such an emoji in a message is making a threat, and whether the company, becoming aware of such a threat, has a duty to do something about it.
    • Re:frist post (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 17, 2016 @01:49PM (#52338253)

      It actually makes sense not to have such an emoji, because it creates a dilemma whether someone using such an emoji in a message is making a threat, and whether the company, becoming aware of such a threat, has a duty to do something about it.

      Obesity kills far more humans than "rifles" ever will, and yet you see no artists blocking food emojis, and no companies worrying about what do to when someone posts a cake emoji.

      Gotta love the logic surrounding this bullshit argument.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by mark-t ( 151149 )
        True... but shootings kill more people than force feeding another person does.

        So food emoji's can't really be perceived of as threats... at least not generally speaking, but a rifle pic could easily be seen as one, depending on the context.

        • Re:frist post (Score:5, Insightful)

          by CrimsonAvenger ( 580665 ) on Friday June 17, 2016 @01:59PM (#52338353)

          but a rifle pic could easily be seen as one, depending on the context

          So, if I were to use a rifle emoji on /., you'd feel threatened? Really?

          Or perhaps you'd only feel threatened if the guy in the next cubicle used one in an email? Seriously, I hope you know the guy in the next cubby well enough to know whether he'd want to shoot you. And if he did (want to shoot you), I'd hope he'd use a real gun rather than an emoji....

          C'mon, people, when you start finding a few characters in an email threatening, there's a problem. And the problem isn't the arrangement of the characters....

          • Seriously, I hope you know the guy in the next cubby well enough to know whether he'd want to shoot you. And if he did (want to shoot you), I'd hope he'd use a real gun rather than an emoji.

            Funny that you should mentioned that...

            http://www.threepanelsoul.com/comic/on-close-quarters [threepanelsoul.com]
            http://www.threepanelsoul.com/comic/on-pink-slips [threepanelsoul.com]
            http://www.threepanelsoul.com/comic/on-unemployment [threepanelsoul.com]

          • I am threatened by all emojis equally. They should all be banned from entering the US.

        • Re:frist post (Score:5, Insightful)

          by _xeno_ ( 155264 ) on Friday June 17, 2016 @02:13PM (#52338473) Homepage Journal

          Yes, I can definitely see how a rifle emoji would be threatening, but a dagger [emojipedia.org], crossed swords [emojipedia.org], skull and crossbones [emojipedia.org], a bomb [emojipedia.org], or even a pistol [emojipedia.org] clearly aren't.

          There's already a pistol emoji. There's no reason not to add a rifle emoji for completeness sake.

        • True... but shootings kill more people than force feeding another person does.

          I doubt your statement is true if you ignore suicides (as they're self-inflicted) and hold parents accountable for their obese kids (just as you would hold gun owners accountable for accidents, kids getting at their guns, etc).

      • Re:frist post (Score:5, Insightful)

        by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Friday June 17, 2016 @01:54PM (#52338299)

        It actually makes sense not to have such an emoji, because it creates a dilemma whether someone using such an emoji in a message is making a threat, and whether the company, becoming aware of such a threat, has a duty to do something about it.

        Obesity kills far more humans than "rifles" ever will, and yet you see no artists blocking food emojis, and no companies worrying about what do to when someone posts a cake emoji.

        Gotta love the logic surrounding this bullshit argument.

        Cakes aren't designed with the express purpose of killing things.

        Bullshit argument indeed.

        • Re:frist post (Score:5, Insightful)

          by unrtst ( 777550 ) on Friday June 17, 2016 @02:19PM (#52338557)

          Cakes aren't designed with the express purpose of killing things.

          Neither are emoji's.
          How many apps/games/etc are there where guns, violence, etc are possible, if not the goal?

          "The usual road to (digital) slavery is that first they take away your gun (emoji's), then they take away your property, then last of all they tell you to shut up and say you are enjoying it." -- James A. Donald

        • by Toshito ( 452851 )

          Cakes aren't designed with the express purpose of killing things

          I see that you've never read Asterix and Cleopatra...

        • Cakes aren't designed with the express purpose of killing things.

          Bullshit argument indeed.

          While talking about bullshit, care to explain this emoji [emojipedia.org] and why Apple also has the most realistic depiction of it?

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by KraxxxZ01 ( 2445360 )
        Cake have many uses, sustaining life being one of them, most violent one is actually fun. Rifle has only one. Your argument is invalid.
      • Obesity kills far more humans than "rifles" ever will, and yet you see no artists blocking food emojis...

        By that logic the only thing we should protest is heat death of the universe.

        Oh, and on a note that seems related but really isn't since noone here is claiming the emoji will incite violence: You're not ever going to go to the wrong part of town and be forced to eat junk food until you die of obesity. Understand that point before you run around criticizing other people's logic.

      • Re:frist post (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Feral Nerd ( 3929873 ) on Friday June 17, 2016 @02:01PM (#52338377)

        It actually makes sense not to have such an emoji, because it creates a dilemma whether someone using such an emoji in a message is making a threat, and whether the company, becoming aware of such a threat, has a duty to do something about it.

        Obesity kills far more humans than "rifles" ever will, and yet you see no artists blocking food emojis, and no companies worrying about what do to when someone posts a cake emoji.

        Gotta love the logic surrounding this bullshit argument.

        Boobs have never killed anybody, all that boobs have ever done is feed babies and put smiles on the lips of men all over the planet, the bigger and bouncier the boobs the bigger the smile. I say all of us slashdotters should unite and lobby Unicode for a set of boobs emojis in all cup-sizes...

      • Obesity kills far more humans than "rifles" ever will, and yet you see no artists blocking food emojis, and no companies worrying about what do to when someone posts a cake emoji.

        As a 46YO, 5'11" and 350-pound white male, I'm not going to eat my cellphone because someone sends me a cake emoji. How stupid can you be?

        • by DaHat ( 247651 )

          My brother was killed by a cake you insensitive clod, and every time someone sends me a cake emoji I have a near emotional breakdown and retreat to my safe space.

          • My brother was killed by a cake you insensitive clod, and every time someone sends me a cake emoji I have a near emotional breakdown and retreat to my safe space.

            I hate to break the bad news to you. Your brother committed suicide. He ate the "Chocolate Lover's Suicide Cake" in one sitting. No one in his right mind does that. Not even fat people.

        • And nobody's gonna go shoot up a place with their phone because someone sent them a rifle emoji.
          • And nobody's gonna go shoot up a place with their phone because someone sent them a rifle emoji.

            Most cellphones have cameras to take pictures and videos. People can shoot up a place, upload to Instagram or YouTube, and call it a day.

            • Someone mod this guy insightful; someone else mod him funny. I mean, he completely missed the point I was making, but I'm certain that was on purpose and, well...
      • by SirSlud ( 67381 )

        Gee, I wonder why people are more concerned about people who blow off limbs and pieces other people with things we invented and don't need outside of war, and people who make the personal choice to eat too much of something we literally cannot live with out and have shorter life spans because of it? Yeah man, people are so illogical.

      • Obesity kills far more humans than "rifles" ever will, and yet you see no artists blocking food emojis, and no companies worrying about what do to when someone posts a cake emoji.

        That's because food has more uses other than causing obesity- for example, food can prevent starvation. People also make boneheaded arguments about how cars kill more people than guns, disregarding all the uses cars have other than just killing people in accidents. They can get you to work, to a hospital, to get food, etc. But a gun is useful for firing bullets, period. It's pretty easy to survive without one.

      • Dumbass school administrative types don't have mindlessly applied "zero tolerance" policies about fat people or the foods that they eat. Meanwhile, that same bunch of halfwits suspend students if, in the process of eating a pop tart, he bites it into an "L" shape that might, by some stretch of the imagination, vaguely be a similar shape to a gun.

        I have no trouble at all imagining a situation where some twat of a principal confiscates a student's phone on a whim, demands under various threats that it be unl

    • Re:frist post (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MobileTatsu-NJG ( 946591 ) on Friday June 17, 2016 @01:51PM (#52338267)

      In simpler terms: Apple saved us a bunch of bullshit like a student being expelled over a rifle emoji.

      Here's a fun fact about emoji: Emoji are artistically re-rendered usually per the brand of the device, resulting in different interpretations of how they're used vs. how they're intended. This has already landed people in hot water. There's an emoji of a someone laughing so hard they're in tears. There are quite a few people out there that see it as someone hysterically crying. On their device it may actually appear that way because of how the artist designed it. Imagine that little misinterpretation happening during a comment made about the recent shooting in Orlando!

      All I'm going to say is: Thank you, Apple.

    • This doesn't make sense considering there are also knife and pistol emoji characters.
    • a dilemma whether someone using such an emoji in a message is making a threat,

      no.

      Context. If I put a rifle emoji next to the shit emoji, I clearly want to shoot the shit. If I put it next to the cow emoji, I want a steak dinner.

      If I say "murder" in actual letters, it's unclear what my intent is. If I say "murder you", possibly I am making a threat, except in this case I put it in quotes as part of a sentence that changes it's meaning from a threat to an explanation.

      The only things that may be confused are

    • by guises ( 2423402 )
      It also makes sense because a rifle isn't an emotion.
      • Ah, yes... I'm feeling very [pistol emoji] today. Because a pistol is an emotion. Likewise with knife, crossed swords, and bomb. Oh, and apple. I think I might be feeling very apple later this evening.
    • by epyT-R ( 613989 )

      or maybe the laws that make such assumptions about 'threatening' online posting are what's broken.

    • > because it creates a dilemma whether someone using such an emoji in a message is making a threat

      No, no it doesnt.

  • the fits emoji and knife emoji to help perpetuate violence... Look at their keynote... they use emoji signifying a desire to punch hindi people!

  • by Crashmarik ( 635988 ) on Friday June 17, 2016 @01:47PM (#52338239)

    The destruction of words is a beautiful thing comrade Cook. This years unicode has 100 fewer symbols than 2015 it's doubleplusgood.

  • Seeing as how the proposed images are primarily hunting rifles(1 is in fact a target shooting rifle and the other appears to be a Winchester-type lever action rifle which has historical significance and connotations), which are generally legal even in cities and countries with very strict firearm legislation, isn't this a bit of an overreaction? It is important to note that it appears to be in a set of Olympic-themed emojis, of which target shooting has been a participating sport for over a century. And o
    • by Altus ( 1034 )

      Everyone who implements emoji end up designing their own... it has to be a rifle if thats the spec but Googles drawing might differ from apple's or facebooks or microsofts. Any one of them might render it as an assault rife or a musket or some other thing that falls into the category of "rifle"

  • by jeffb (2.718) ( 1189693 ) on Friday June 17, 2016 @01:52PM (#52338283)

    ...only outlaws will have codepoints.

    Okay, and anybody who understands how to look things up in a character set.

  • by wonkey_monkey ( 2592601 ) on Friday June 17, 2016 @01:53PM (#52338291) Homepage

    There's already a gun emoji. Windows sidesteps the issue a bit by displaying it a cartoon raygun:

    http://emojipedia.org/microsof... [emojipedia.org]

  • Another brutal attempt at gun control >:-)
    • How am I supposed to have an emoji militia without rifles?

      I feel my e-2nd amendment rights have been trampled.
  • And just when I thought it was impossible for me to hate Apple any more than I already do...they exceed my expectations and manage to make me hate them even more.
    • by King_TJ ( 85913 )

      Seriously? The only part of the whole thing that made me like Apple slightly less was when they first started SUPPORTING emojis in the OS and made a big deal about it as a "new feature" worth upgrading for.

      As far as I'm concerned, emojis are generally just an annoyance. Reminds me of back in the BBS era where people could make flashing colored ANSI text and animated twirling cursors moving around and backspacing things that were on the screen.

      If you feel the need to send images to someone, great. Send a ph

  • Really? "I feel like shooting something"? If you do then fucking _type_it_ instead of inserting a graphical symbol no one knows what it is supposed to represent and may look strange on the recipient(s) machine(s).

    So when should we expect the "I stubbed my toe and want to comfort myself with chocolate ice-cream with opium topping to be washed down with vodka" emoji to appear?

  • by Stormy Dragon ( 800799 ) on Friday June 17, 2016 @02:08PM (#52338433)

    ...this will prevent further mass shootings in chat rooms.

  • by HalAtWork ( 926717 ) on Friday June 17, 2016 @02:35PM (#52338707)

    How do we get rid of the rest of the emoji?

  • I don't know whether or not someone is threatening me with... safe sex or not?
  • Apple could have just replaced them with walkie-talkies on iOS. :p
  • May we have a politician-being-bribed emoticon?

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