Talk:Emoji/Archives/2017/October

Controversial emojis
Hello everyone,

I think "controversial emojis" is a current topical subject because of the increasing usage of emojis and specially emojis like peach or eggplant in social networks. It raises interesting controversies and debates because they are related to the notion of building digital identity. That's why I added a paragraph to the "emoji" page to address the sociological dimension of emoji usage. What do you think about these polemics?AnasBARAKAT TPT (talk) 17:35, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Please don't use all upper case; it's considered shouting. When writing about emoji, it's important to make the distinction between the standard emoji codes in Unicode and the pictures used for them by different vendors or which appear in different fonts.  Here's the entire current emoji chart: . This shows the graphics used by major vendors. "Peach" varies from vendor to vendor, for example. Apple's version of "pistol" is at variance with everyone else. John Nagle (talk) 18:18, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the upper case, my intention was to draw people's attention. Indeed,  I didn't make the distinction in my paragraph. I'm conscious that the rendering is different depending on the device. However, for what I was discussing, the problem stands for almost all the versions: I checked for the peach, the pictures are very similar. For the pistol, I precised that it was the apple version. AnasBARAKAT TPT (talk) 19:45, 18 June 2017 (UTC)


 * To my opinion, the whole section was a case of WP:UNDUEWEIGHT with loads of text on some very tiny issues. So I have removed the section. The Banner talk 07:19, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't agree with you, it was a small section comparing to the whole page and it addressed the issue of controversial emojis which is very famous when you know about emojis and I think it's a relevant subject when you talk about emojis. These pictures are not only about smileys and happy faces they can raise issues. That was the point of my contribution with a sourced text. (Independent, CNN tech news ...). So it was may be a tiny issue as you say but it raised the attention of famous newspapers and it was famous in the web in general: Internet users heard about these examples of controversial emojis (peach, eggplant and others) AnasBARAKAT TPT (talk) 12:18, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
 * You blow a minor issue way out of proportion. The Banner talk 12:43, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Not for the Emoji page, there is less interesting content in this page. Honestly, I don't understand why a small paragraph about "Controversial emojis" cannot be added to the page, even if it is in another form than my paragraph, in a smaller one. You also removed the references which are interesting and equivalent to the sources of the page. AnasBARAKAT TPT (talk) 22:39, 19 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Three sentences giving two or three examples of objections or changes is all that's needed. That the word polemic keeps coming up in this thread suggests someone may have a WP:CIR problem because of poor English.  E Eng  16:42, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
 * The problem is not the word "polemic" for this page. We are discussing if it's relevant to add a small paragraph about controversial emojis in the "Emoji" page. I think it's a good idea and others seem to disagree. This is the point of the discussion in the "Emoji" talk page. AnasBARAKAT TPT (talk) 22:43, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Hello everyone,

As french students in digital communication, we studied communication problems with respect to emojis. And mainly the controversial issue of emojis. We have taken note of the discussion on this topic, which is why we find it interesting to add a paragraph on the economic impact that controversial emojis can have.

Indeed, the interpretation of emojis is subject to several factors (cultural or contextual factors, technological and brand image). Some will be diverted from their senses through different representations and this will create communities of meaning. These communities of meaning, because of their influence can provoke reactions and push the lobbies to the censorship. This becomes an economic component.

Before adding a paragraph on this aspect of controversial emojis, we would like to benefit from the opinion of the Wikipedia community as we have carried out a deep research work that we wish to share ?!--IAEP.ManonD (talk) 16:43, 4 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Do you have any reliable sources for what you're proposing to add? Your mention of your own research is a bit of a red flag. (See WP:OR.) Nitpicking polish (talk) 17:07, 4 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Our starting point was the “Emoji communication problems” paragraph that was already process on the wiki page. As a result, we have established a reflection on the interpretation aspect. We studied Clark’s psycholinguistic theory, the analysis of social representations by Claude Levi-Strauss, and consult different survey. In addition we have done some researches mainly on two controversial emojis : the eggplant and the gun. Many articles have questioned us on why and how the controversials emojis have lead to censorship (example with Instagram and Apple). By studying all this informations, we ended up at this economic aspect. --IAEP.ManonD (talk) 18:39, 5 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, what you're describing seems to be original research. Please read the page on WP:OR if this isn't clear; note, in particular, the sidebar:"Outside of Wikipedia, original research is a key part of scholarly work. However, Wikipedia editors must not base their contributions on their own original research. Wikipedia editors must base their contributions on reliable, published sources."


 * If I'm misunderstanding what you're describing, can you please clarify? Nitpicking polish (talk) 19:06, 5 October 2017 (UTC)


 * We have analyzed the theories mentioned above, but we have also dissected French and English articles on controversial emojis. We arn't sure what you want to get from "reliable sources",but we can make you the list of sources used to get to writing our paragraph. These are the following:http://lexpansion.lexpress.fr/high-tech/attention-vos-emojis-peuvent-avoir-un-sens-cache_1927920.html

http://topibuzz.com/article-3864/voici-le-guide-complet-pour-dechiffrer-le-sens-cache-des-emojis-je-ne-savais-vraiment-pas-pour-certains http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/les-internets/20150507.OBS8571/parlez-vous-emoji.html http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/les-internets/20150507.OBS8571/parlez-vous-emoji.html http://www.cosmopolitan.fr/,mais-que-veulent-vraiment-dire-les-emojis,1923154.asp http://www.lesinrocks.com/2017/07/17/actualite/journee-mondiale-des-emoji-connaissez-vous-leur-sens-cache-11966291/ http://www.sbs.com.au/news/thefeed/article/2016/02/16/look-most-controversial-emojis http://www.ibtimes.com/world-emoji-day-2017-some-most-controversial-emojis-2566621 http://money.cnn.com/2016/08/01/technology/apple-pistol-emoji/index.html http://nymag.com/selectall/2016/11/new-ios-10-2-emoji-peach-emoji-doesnt-look-like-a-butt.html --IAEP.ManonD (talk) 21:16, 5 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Hello, We come back to you, because we didn’t get an answer. We have decided to deepen our research in order to rely on “reliable, published sources” and that our work isn’t only a "scholarly work", but also a work based on published theories and academic and peer-reviewed publications. We want to explain our reflection on the interpretation of controversial emojis, through Clark's psycholinguistic theory that will show that peoples don’t interpret emojis in the same way. Moreover, according to Agata Jackiewicz's academic research, "Men are brought to confront their ideas because they differ in the points of view and the scales of values ​​they adopt with regard to their environments and 'themselves." Also, according to Pierre De Visscher "Every human being is born and raised within a linguistic community. He speaks a distinct language that crystallizes habits, categorizes human experience, conditions his thinking and social processes. "This refers to the communities of meaning we are talking about that are created with respect to controversial emojis. Moreover, we deal with the words of Pierre De Visscher in depth, and relate this form of language and the influence that can result from it: "Language is a fundamental societal actor: the imprint that it exerts is enormous ; it models society and constitutes an essential and everyday instrument of action. "This refers in our situation to lobbies that are pushed to censorship as we have seen in the examples mentioned above. --IAEP.ManonD (talk) 18:55, 11 October 2017 (UTC)


 * However solid your work, what you've described still falls squarely in Wikipedia's definition of "original research", which is explicitly disallowed on Wikipedia. Please read that page, including the section under "synthesis of published material". This is no comment on the value of your work, only on its appropriateness for Wikipedia. If you feel that I'm mischaracterizing your work, can you please explain how?

Hello ! It’s us again ! We have read the section of (synthesis of published material) and we hope that it’s ok for us this time… Because, we try to explain our subject like this is indicate on the page. The emojis use is increasing every day, rapidly changing the way in which we communicate in Social Networks. Emojis are used to communicate simple things or feelings in a fresh, visual and condensed way (link). Even if the Unicode Consortium4 decides the official meanings of the emojis, the use of emojis online is unpredictable and socially-determined (link) (ex: emoji eggplant). The textual context is also important in determining the role of the emoji as an amplifier and modifier of the meaning (link) (ex: emoji gun). We have 2 examples of controversials emojis explanations that can lead to censorship for many reasons : According to Caroline Ouellet “In the Usenet community, there is a mass of opinions about the censorships criteria. Most active members vigorously opposed any attempt at censorship. [...] However, network managers are often torn between the desire to function with the leasts constraints as possible and the responsibility they feel for their intuitions and users.” It is under the influence of different communities (institutions,users, justice...) that Apple will replace his revolver emoji by a water gun (link), in order to meet their responsibilities and meet their users. --IAEP.ManonD (talk) 19:11, 12 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Your prior comments made it sound like you were going to be doing extensive synthesis of research and forming new conclusions. As long as everything is cited as per the examples in your last comment (I don't have time to go read your cited sources at the moment, so am taking your word for that), and your summary is an uncontroversial generalizing of the cited examples, I'd say yeah, go ahead and include this.  If some of it is deemed by other editors to be overreaching, those pieces can always be taken out after your first attempt.  --Dan Harkless (talk) 00:14, 13 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Following your comment we tried to publish on the page but it is semi-protected. Did you receive our request for publication? Thank you. --IAEP.ManonD (talk) 07:56, 17 October 2017 (UTC)


 * No, your edit request contained no actual content. SparklingPessimist responded to that effect and then removed the blank request.  You'll have to try again.  --Dan Harkless (talk) 10:12, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 October 2017

 * So what exactly do you want to be changed here? It's unclear what you want to be done.  Sak ura Cart elet   Talk 00:37, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Controversial emojis
The emojis use is increasing every day, rapidly changing the way we communicate on Social Networks. Emojis and “mobile culture” are deeply intertwined and their use isn’t restricted to teenagers discussions. Emojis are used to communicate simple things or feelings in a new, fun and quick way.

Even if the Unicode Consortium4 decides the officials meanings of the emojis, the use of emojis online is unpredictable and socially-determined (for example : emoji eggplant). The textual context is also important in determining the role of the emoji as a booster and/or modifier of the meaning (for example : emoji gun). The eggplant and the gun are two controversials emojis. The controversials emojis can lead to censorship for many reasons “In the Usenet community, there is a mass of opinions about the censorships criteria. Most active members vigorously opposed any attempt of censorship. [...] However, network managers are often torn between the desire to function with the leasts constraints as possible and the responsibility they feel for their intuitions and users.” It’s under the influence of different powers (institutions, users, justice...), that managers can erase or edit emojis, in order to undertake their responsibilities and satisfy their users in the meantime (Apple did it when they replaced the revolver emoji with a water gun).

Moreover, emojis can be useful because they can have an “emotional impact”, they give a “human face” to the brand, they can allow popularity increasement, they simplify the communication, reduce criticism, assert the brand identity… The buzz around emojis become also a market with start-ups specializing in the “brand sticker” to provide brands with their own emoji that Internet users will not be able to transpose or hijack. IAEP.ManonD (talk) 19:48, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Response
Partly done: Much of your text has nothing to do with controversial emojis, and your citations do not establish the claims you're trying to make about censorship. For instance, by 2011, when emojis began to be included in international OS releases, Usenet was barely used anymore except as a dumping ground for illegal binaries. Your only material additions regard controversy surrounding the gun and eggplant emojis, but (amongst its many problems) your text does not do a good job of elucidating those controversies.

I do agree that information about those controversies is well worth adding to the article, however, so I've completely rewritten, expanded, and re-cited your proposed section, which I've made a subsection of "Emoji communications problems". The below text has been added to the article (see this diff):

Some emoji have been involved in controversy due to their perceived meanings. Multiple arrests and imprisonments have followed usage of gun (🔫), knife (🗡), and bomb (💣) emojis in ways that were deemed by authorities to constitute credible threats.

In May 2016, the Unicode Consortium considered whether to add a proposed rifle emoji as part of a collection of Olympic-themed images, but after opposition from Apple and Microsoft, the character was vetoed, along with a "modern pentathalon" emoji depicting a man firing a pistol.

On August 1, 2016, Apple announced that in iOS 10, the gun emoji would be changed from a realistic revolver to a water pistol. Ironically, the following day, Microsoft pushed out an update to Windows 10 that changed its longstanding depiction of the gun emoji as a toy ray-gun to a real revolver. Microsoft stated that the change was made to bring the glyph more in line with industry-standard designs and customer expectations.

The eggplant / aubergine emoji has also seen controversy due to its being used, particularly in America, to represent a penis. Beginning in December 2014, the hashtag #EggplantFridays began to rise to popularity on Instagram for use in marking photos containing clothed or unclothed penises. This became such a popular trend that beginning in April 2015, Instagram disabled the ability to search for not only the #EggplantFridays tag, but also other eggplant-containing hashtags, including simply #eggplant and #🍆.

--Dan Harkless (talk) 13:57, 19 October 2017 (UTC)


 * U+1F946 RIFLE 🥆 and U+1F93B MODERN PENTATHLON 🤻 were not "vetoed"; they were encoded as characters in Unicode 9.0 as planned, but just not listed as emoji. BabelStone (talk) 14:07, 19 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the correction on that, BabelStone. The CNN Tech articles I cited implied that the characters had been "nixed" from the 9.0 standard entirely.  I'll update the article.  --Dan Harkless (talk) 14:34, 19 October 2017 (UTC)