X has a handgun emoji, and no one knows why
What's the story
Elon Musk-owned social network, X, has replaced the water pistol emoji introduced in 2018, with a regular handgun.
The change was announced by an X employee in a post on the platform.
However, the company has not provided any explanation for this decision.
This move is contrary to the trend set by other firms like Google and Facebook, which have replaced their pistol emojis with green-and-orange water guns.
Emoji evolution
History of emoji changes across platforms
Apple was the first to replace the pistol emoji with a water gun in 2016, setting a trend that X (then Twitter) followed in 2018.
Microsoft briefly resisted this change before eventually conforming.
The Unicode Consortium, responsible for deciding which emojis are created, officially renamed the pistol emoji as "water pistol."
Emojis share common designations across platforms as decided by the Unicode Consortium, but their visual representation is up to each platform owner.
Platform update
X's gun emoji limited to web version
Currently, the gun emoji on X is only visible when using the web version of the platform.
The mobile versions of the app have not yet been updated with this change.
However, it is anticipated that an update will be rolled out in the future to include this change across all versions of the social network.
The company has not provided a timeline for this expected update.