The platform switched back from a toy pistol to a realistic firearm last month
Elon Musk has explained the decision to bring back the gun emoji to X (formerly Twitter), saying the choice to depict a realistic firearm rather than a toy pistol is part of the fight against the “woke mind virus.”
In a post on his social media network on Tuesday, the US billionaire shared a chart showing how the emoji has looked on various platforms over the past decade. Included on the list alongside X were images used in the products of Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Meta’s Facebook.
The apparent trend has been to move away from real guns to toy guns, while Musk’s platform has done the opposite since he bought it in 2022.
”Nerfing of the gun emoji matches rise of the woke mind virus, as a core tenet is equating fake harm with real harm,” he said, commenting on the chart.
Nerfing of the gun emoji matches rise of the woke mind virus, as a core tenet is equating fake harm with real harm pic.twitter.com/Mhx2HjcES9
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 20, 2024
X transition from the previous toy gun to one that resembles a modern semi-automatic pistol happened last month – at least for its web interface. The older version was introduced by previous management in 2018.
