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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: 0.26s | source
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grenoire ◴[07 Aug 16 01:46 UTC] No.12240692[source]▶
I think this is a ridiculous change by Apple, going completely against the idea of Unicode and consistent character displays across different devices. Author's suggestion is good, but I don't think that this was a necessary change by any means in the first place.
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cooper12 ◴[07 Aug 16 02:06 UTC] No.12240739[source]▶
Unicode only says that it's a gun, and only recommends how it should look. IME's are free to make the emojis look however they want at their discretion. Note Samsung's saltines instead of chocolate chip cookies for "U+1F36A Cookie". Consistency is laudable, but we live in a world with multiple cultures, meanings, and contexts, so in the end consistency might actually be more harmful and reductionist.
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1. morgante ◴[07 Aug 16 02:55 UTC] No.12240837[source]▶
Here's the problem: a toy gun is not the same meaning as a gun. Emojis can vary their visual representation, but should not change the underlying meaning.

If a hospital has a rule against taking guns on premises, nobody thinks that would apply to a toy gun. A toy gun is a different semantic object.