Twitter has Changed their Gun Emoji into a Water Gun

Following Apple, Twitter has changed its pistol/gun emoji and swapped it for a bright green water gun.
Twitter is rolling out an emoji update called Twemoji 2.6 and will effect users who use the platform on the web, on their mobile phones, and on Tweetdeck.

Twitter confirmed the new emoji change with TechCrunch via email and said the decision was made in order to be consistent with others who have changed theirs.

It was in 2016 when Apple rolled out the water gun in its iOS 10 update. Following this move was Samsung which changed its gun to a water gun, and WhatsApp. Microsoft and Google however left their emojis as realistic guns.

According to Emojipedia’s founder, Jeremy Burge, “The main problem with the different appearances of the pistol emoji has been the potential for confusion when one platform displays this as an innocuous toy, and another shows the same emoji as a weapon. This was particularly an issue in 2016 when Apple changed the pistol emoji out of step with every single other vendor at the time. Now we’re seeing multiple vendors all changing to a water pistol image all in a similar timeframe with Samsung and Twitter both changing their design this year.”

“I know some users object to what they see as censorship on their emoji keyboard, but I can certainly see why companies today might want to ensure that they aren’t showing a weapon where iPhone and Samsung Galaxy users now have a toy gun,” Burge also said.

Disclaimer: We have no position in Twitter Inc. (NYSE: TWTR) and have not been compensated for this article.