There is still a controversial debate in the United States on policies of possession of weapons and the historical moment that the country, where the succession of shootings and mass murder is reaching unprecedented levels. This fight was not alien to the technological platforms and now reaches to the realm of the emojis.
As have noticed the guys at Fortune, in the fourth beta of iOS 10 a subtle but noticeable change has been integrated into its emojis menu, since they eliminated the traditional image of a revolver that has now been replaced by a friendly and more harmless water gun, which still continues to be the figure of a weapon, but already non-lethal :
Apple has said nothing about the topic, and therefore there is no certainty that this change has been a reaction to the initiative #DisarmTheiPhone, where we sought to stop ‘promote’ this type of images.
However, if we remember a little bit about the process of selection and design of emojis, this movement is actually possible and does not represent any violation to the standards imposed by the Unicode Consortium.
The truth is that the water gun would only be visible to users of iOS, while all outsiders to this platform will continue showing a revolver if they receive this emoji in a message.
