X (Twitter) replaced the water gun emoji with a firearm

X (ex-Twitter) replaced his water pistol emoji with a real gun. A more political decision than it seems, given that weapons have not appeared in emojis for years.

Since 2018, all major companies have been using the same emoji to represent a firearm: an innocent water pistol, following the decision first taken by Apple. A consortium that has been authoritative for years that X is breaking up with its decision to use a real firearm again.

Water gun fills with real bullets on X

This is the blog ofEmojipedia who reported this change: the new emoji began rolling out on July 18. A date that is not as insignificant as it seems: the day before was World Emoji Day. The update is rolling out on the web version of X: apparently, this is not (yet?) the case on the mobile app. It is a Colt M1911, which is often (wrongly) called the Colt 45. It is an iconic weapon, since it was the pistol of the American army from 1911 to 1985. That is why we see it in so many films and series, but also video games.

On X of course, an employee of the company who goes by the name kache gave some details. He indicated that he had modified the SVG file in a text editor ” until it looked like a gun, then I sent it. “He adds that the design will be changed soon to make it more ” badass ” and that the update will also be brought to mobile applications.

In fact, for many years, Twitter has been using Twemoji, a library of Twitter-style emojis based on the Unicode standard (from the consortium of the same name), the most widespread in the world (and by far). This allows for compatibility between services and operating systems. Unfortunately, since February 2023, X has stopped using Twemoji and replaced its emojis with the native emojis of each device. This is also why the change is not visible on Android smartphones. Regarding iPhones, X/Twitter has always used Apple’s emojis.

An emoji in place since 2018 and not for nothing

For years, all the major emoji providers have been removing real firearms and replacing them with water guns. The gun emoji was permanently replaced by the water gun emoji in 2018. As a reminder, Apple had already replaced it in 2016 and the other players had followed suit with the Unicode standard.

All major tech companies are based in the United States, and the fact that they don’t depict firearms is not without importance. Note that X remains legally free to choose its emojis: the Unicode standard remains at the will of each actor. The goal is to avoid conveying violent images, particularly based on combinations of emojis, which could target people according to their gender, sexuality, religion, ethnicity, or nationality.