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Apple and the Gun Emoji

(blog.emojipedia.org)
59 points firloop | 1 comments | 06 Aug 16 23:36 UTC | HN request time: 0.509s | source
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teddyh ◴[07 Aug 16 02:04 UTC] No.12240734[source]▶
Question for those who are fine with what Apple did: What if Apple had implemented a text filter which changes all occurences of the word “pistol” to “water pistol”. Would that be fine too?

Also, what if the Unicode Consortium later adds an emoji for “WATER PISTOL”? How should it be distinguished from the “PISTOL” emoji? Or should they be identical?

replies(3): >>12240765 #>>12240789 #>>12240830 #
1. helthanatos ◴[07 Aug 16 02:50 UTC] No.12240830[source]▶
Saying this is a slippery slope is not true, at worst, this is a bad comparison. The point of this is not that changing images and changing words are exactly the same, rather it is to illustrate the change in a stronger light. A change vs a more drastic change is not exactly the same, but no change at all is better in either area. Emojis are used to represent words, if the heart emoji was changed to a candy heart or even an anatomically correct one, would people be upset? The answer is yes, because the meaning is different. This is not people simply getting mad at change or PC, but it is rather a valid cause for concern of censorship.