Twitter fights US gun culture by replacing the 'pistol' emoji with a green toy gun

In a bid to fight the prevailing gun culture, Twitter has changed its “pistol” emoji to a bright green “water gun”, following Apple, which launched a similar one in its iOS 10 update. [caption id=“attachment_4335359” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Twitter. Reuters.[/caption] The change is part of Twitter’s emoji update “Twemoji 2.6,” TechCrunch reported late on Wednesday. “In doing so, the company that has struggled to handle the abuse, hate speech and harassment taking place across its platform, has removed one of the means for online abusers to troll their victims,” the report added. Replacing the weapon gun by a child’s toy, first by Apple and now by Twitter makes the effort against gun-culture prevalent in the US very clear.

“A gun should not have a place in the pictorial language people commonly use when messaging on mobile devices,” said the report. Samsung and WhatsApp have already replaced their gun emojis with a water gun.