Microsoft, Google and Twitter joined the anti-gun movement in Silicon Valley this April by replacing their "emojis" of firearms with water guns.
Apple was the first company to replace its realistic silver-colored revolver with a green toy gun, already in 2016.
This change was motivated by a series of shootings and massacres that occurred that year in the US, among which The Guardian highlighted the deaths of two African-Americans shot by the police and armed attacks against officers that took place later. American society reacted to those killings with indignation and numerous demonstrations against the indiscriminate use of firearms, RT said.
However, the other courier operators then hesitated to join the initiative. Microsoft even made a move against the current and replaced days later his own toy laser gun for a revolver within a multiple redesign of his library of 'emojis' that sought to make them "more human, more personal, more expressive", according to The Verge quotes .
This 2018, the software giant has surrendered to the general trend and on April 25 showed the public which will be the most stylish water gun in the virtual world.
"We are in a process of evolution of our 'emojis' to reflect our values and the comments we have received," the company said in a tweet. Your green weapon is now ready to 'shoot', but so far the exact date of putting it into service in your Outlook email is unknown.
Meanwhile, the WhatsApp messenger service replaced its firearm with a water pistol in 2017, despite the fact that its parent company, Facebook, has only "disguised" its traditional revolver with new colors. Thus, Mark Zuckerberg's network is now the only one that will allow him to continue using firearms symbols in his instant messages and publications.
Both Samsung, Twitter and Google have adhered to the change so far this year 2018, picks up The Guardian. Google will get rid of the revolver with the update of the current version of the Android operating system to 9.0. The new gun will be orange, with a yellow water tank. The change is expected to take effect next May.
Two years ago, the Unicode consortium tried to oppose the trend by saying that the deviation from the global standard could cause confusion and proposed a hunting rifle in an attempt to reach a consensus on the matter. However, almost all messaging operators finally opted for toy guns.