…the rifle emoji was proposed to “represent shooting as a sport”, including hunting and marksmanship, according to a submission to Unicode, which is how new icons are added.Īnd a writer at BuzzFeed noted the powerful influence of companies like Apple in the process of adopting new emoji.Īpple is one of Unicode’s largest member companies and not only has voting rights, but also holds considerable influence. The pistol emoji will still be available, but Apple said it wouldn’t add the rifle to its services. But members of the Unicode Consortium, which is responsible for regulating emoji, voted unanimously to remove it in a move the body described as “bizarre and unusual”Īpple led the decision, according to BuzzFeed, and was supported by all 12 technology giants that are voting members of Unicode, including Facebook, Google and Microsoft. The new emoji was due to join the keyboard line-up in an update this month. | Sign up for CIO newsletters.Īpple, Google, Facebook and Microsoft have joined forces to stop a rifle emoji from being added to the catalogue of images available to their users on their smartphones. Beware the 9 warning signs of bad IT architecture and see why these 10 old-school IT principles still rule.