Chicago Rejoice! Tech Giants Replacing Gun Emojis With Water Pistols

Microsoft, Google and Facebook have now all joined Silicon Valley's anti-gun brigade and are replacing their gun emojis with a water pistol.

Apple was the first to rebrand the weapon in 2016 following a series of mass shootings in the US. Other major players were hesitant to join the PC brigade at first, in fact, Microsoft announced days later that they were doing the reverse by changing their space gun to look more realistic.

At the time, it was thought the update would cause more confusion by deviating from the global Unicode Standard across devices and apps. The code ensured that emojis appeared to have the same meaning irrespective of the device it was sent to or from.

For years, major platforms held steady on their intent to follow the code, however, as of Wednesday, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter have opted for the less intimidating hardware.

WhatsApp replaced its gun with a water pistol in 2017, while Samsung and Twitter followed suit in 2018 and now Google, Facebook and Microsoft have all announced they are joining the fold.

We are in the process of evolving our emojis to reflect our values and the feedback we’ve received. Here’s a preview: pic.twitter.com/BlB3yYTSht

— Microsoft (@Microsoft) April 25, 2018

The world is safer now!

— Bene Barbosa - MVB (@benebarbosa_mvb) April 26, 2018

great, now I'm sure that the massive shootings will stop

— Lusca Pinho (@luscapinho) April 25, 2018

I FEEL SO MUCH SAFER ON THE INTERNET. Thanks Microsoft for copying Google.

— Boycott Samsung Electronics America (@Boycott_Samsung) April 25, 2018

There isn't even a safety on this

— Luke Hill (@Stillwearingsox) April 25, 2018

Because the big companies are now in the business of telling us what we can and cannot do.

— Elden Fenison (@eldenf) April 25, 2018