Social media companies have united to ban a rifle emoji that would have become available in June on smartphones. Members of the Unicode Consortium, who are responsible for regulating emoji, voted unanimously to remove it from the new update, calling it “bizarre and unusual.” Facebook, Twitter, and Apple agreed.
The rifle was part of an Olympic-themed emoji package that includes swimming, fencing, and karate. The rifle was intended to represent shooting as a sport, according to a submission from Unicode.
When it was introduced in 2015, a gun-control campaign immediately objected to its inclusion.
Apple, who has frequently been on the forefront of other left-wing campaigns, agreed. “Apple started the discussion to remove the rifle emoji [and] told the consortium it would not support a rifle on its platforms and asked for it not to be made into an emoji,” according to BuzzFeed.
In the past, Apple also blocked the gun, bomb, and knife emoji from OS X Yosemite, though they showed up on the iPhone.
Despite the fact that it has no sporting ties, the handgun emoji remains available on keyboards, as well as the knife and the bomb. The handgun emoji has been used in death threats before; earlier this year, a man in France was sentenced to three months in prison for texting his girlfriend a death threat with the handgun emoji. The decision to remove the rifle, which is directly associated with sporting events, confused users for the apparent contradiction.
This announcement comes as the after-effects of the Orlando shooting sparked a political debate on the necessity of stricter gun control policies.
The new update is slated to become available on June 21 and will include emoji such as “bat,” “glass of milk,” and “wilted flower.” The rifle, however, will not be featured in the update.
