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X redesigns water pistol emoji back to a firearm

blog.emojipedia.org

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Re: X redesigns water pistol emoji back to a firearm

#121

Post by chrisco255 »

paxys wrote: post #78
chrisco255 wrote: post #35

I grew up with the argument that video game violence causes real violence. At the time, conservatives were keen on censoring violence, blood and gore in movies, video games and TV shows. It was the liberal establishment that defended artistic violence and sexuality. Now it seems like the pendulum swung and liberals seem keen on promoting squirt gun emojis, meanwhile some of the most popular video games on the market…

Every side is pro censorship, just when it suits them the most. Look at all the book bans across conservative states, for example.

The book bans are only primary school libraries. I think this is fine, K-12 is mandatory, so clearly the state and local districts should have influence over what's allowed there. There's restrictions on religious teachings in school and likewise there should be limits on opinionated secular topics that don't advance reading, writing, and arithmetic skills. There's plenty of exposure to that stuff via other channels.

Re: X redesigns water pistol emoji back to a firearm

#122

Post by theultdev »

qual wrote: post #110
theultdev wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a "veiled whistle blow", it's my personal belief. But yes, I am against woke culture at it's core, vehemently. In no way does an emoji encourage armed violence. Are you against violent video games as well?

(Not the person you were replying to) I'm curious what/how you define "woke culture", because the only definitions of "woke" I've ever heard are basically "thing I don't like" or "the left". Neither of those definitions have helped me understand what you are so vehemently against. Can you help me understand what woke culture is to you? This is a genuine question.

It's definitely an umbrella term and we'd be here for a while discussing all facets of it, but in this case in particular it's the movement to censor speech under the guise of anti-gun rhetoric (like an emoji will cause gun violence). That is no different than Christians trying to ban violent video games.

Note that I am not the one who brought up the term to the conversation. I did want to avoid the labels as there's always someone who comes up and ask you to define the label instead of talking about the issue itself. In this case, censorship.

Re: X redesigns water pistol emoji back to a firearm

#123

Post by shaky-carrousel »

theultdev wrote: post #25
soupbowl wrote: post #13

The fact that the emoji was "censored" to begin with is weird to me. But the internet is weird and now people will be getting banned from X for using gun emojis to promote political violence.

I found it alarming that the meaning of previous texts between many people could be altered by simply changing the glyph of an emote. And noone voted for it, all companies effectively in charge of these emojis (Google, Apple, etc.) decided for everyone that it was for the best. What will they change next, who initiated and coordinated that effort, and why, are all important questions. I'm very much against it. It's t…

Technological companies absolutely love to infantilize their employees and their users.

Re: X redesigns water pistol emoji back to a firearm

#124

Post by xg15 »

This seems like approximately the dumbest possible place to have political battles. Isn't the entire purpose of having a standard set of emojis as part of Unicode to enable reliable communication of the concepts and emotions associated with them?

In that sense it's perfectly fine if it was a water pistol, a real gun or whatever else as long as it's the same thing everywhere. But the same codepoint showing up as a water pistol to one half of the audience and as a gun to the other seems to be just begging for misunderstandings - and in a charged atmosphere like X no less where this could easily spiral into drama, shitstorms or worse.

Re: X redesigns water pistol emoji back to a firearm

#125

Post by mindslight »

chrisco255 wrote: post #35

I grew up with the argument that video game violence causes real violence. At the time, conservatives were keen on censoring violence, blood and gore in movies, video games and TV shows. It was the liberal establishment that defended artistic violence and sexuality. Now it seems like the pendulum swung and liberals seem keen on promoting squirt gun emojis, meanwhile some of the most popular video games on the market…

It's still conservatives, but conservatives from the culture that liberals ushered in over the past several decades. This explains the college campus dynamic as well, where all these professors that fought for liberal ideas in the 1970's and 1980's grew old and stopped questioning their own ideas. Now they're busy closing the ranks and tone policing anybody that pokes holes in their dogma. That dynamic isn't liberalism running amok, but rather just the bog standard pearl clutching of conservatism. Actual liberalism still exists, it just doesn't get media attention as pitting red tribe conservatism versus blue tribe conservatism creates more arguing (aka engagement).

Re: X redesigns water pistol emoji back to a firearm

#128

Post by sv123 »

theultdev wrote: post #94
xk_id wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such a thin veiled whistle blow against woke culture. The very concept of corporate-curated glyphs restricts and normalises communication to a limited range of concepts pre-approved by the architects of consumer culture. But apparently this is only a problem to you when it tries to discourage armed violence.

It's not a "veiled whistle blow", it's my personal belief. But yes, I am against woke culture at it's core, vehemently. In no way does an emoji encourage armed violence. Are you against violent video games as well?

Won't somebody think of Elon's children!?!

Re: X redesigns water pistol emoji back to a firearm

#129

Post by theultdev »

therouwboat wrote: post #117
theultdev wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a "veiled whistle blow", it's my personal belief. But yes, I am against woke culture at it's core, vehemently. In no way does an emoji encourage armed violence. Are you against violent video games as well?

So emojis are just funny pictures that don't mean anything? also "Tried, but didn’t like doing crime. GTA5 required shooting police officers in the opening scene. Just couldn’t do it." - Elon Musk

Similar to words, it's how you use them.

And he didn't try to ban GTA, that's his personal opinion of not wanting to commit virtual violence himself.

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