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https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/4ay4kb/guillotine-emoji-unicode
When you want to express your complete rage at the incompetence of leadership over text, in a way that says "I would like to see their heads removed at the neck with a large falling blade and rolled into little baskets" but less literal and more succinct, an emoji would help a lot.
Sadly, there is no guillotine emoji, despite "guillotine them" being the ruling sentiment of the pissed-off proletariat for the last... well, probably many years, but more lately, as tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets in protests around the world.
Lisbon-based artist Carrozo is lobbying the Unicode Consortium to include a guillotine in its next emoji update, and has sent an application outlining why the people need the 18th century execution machine in their emoji lexicon.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Aegis on Tuesday July 21 2020, @02:41PM (6 children)
No it's not. It may be unwise, or used to make threat, or used while committing hate speech. But, a picture of a murder device by itself is not hate speech unless you are using it to threaten a group of people.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 21 2020, @02:56PM
Did you read the summary or the article for the justification used by the promoter of this emoji?
I don't think we need to add another shitmoji for the purpose of having a new one character equivalent of a mob-inciting hashtag.
This is not a neutral emoji that we've all been needing to discuss our daily chores of home guillotine maintenance. Perhaps you would like for the Unicode consortium to add a new bloody severed head emoji with a knife on the neck? It's just a picture. Maybe it could serve as a localized equivalent of the guillotine for Muslim countries. Surely we all could use this.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 21 2020, @04:31PM
Unless it gets on a such a list which until recently was called a blacklist.
It doesn't matter what you intended to say or whether it is logically correct; if it can be used by some groups or individuals to gain power over you and/or groups you are a member of, you will be "wrong" and suffer the consequences.
(Score: 2) by DeVilla on Wednesday July 22 2020, @05:15AM (3 children)
The reasoning that cause pictures of firearms to be be effectively removed as an emoji would apply here. Not specifically agreeing with or arguing against the precedent, but a guillotine is no less of a murder device than a rifle.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Booga1 on Thursday July 23 2020, @06:25AM (2 children)
Technically true, but the comparison is incomplete.
A rifle can be used for ostensibly positive things like sustenance hunting, target shooting, and home defense. It can also be used for comparably negative things like trophy hunting, vandalism, and murder.
However, the guillotine has a singular purpose, removing heads from shoulders. The guillotine is clearly more of a murder device than a rifle.
(Score: 2) by DeVilla on Thursday July 23 2020, @03:12PM (1 child)
Right. I guess I was trying to say that if a rifle pictogram needs to be removed from unicode, I'm not sure how to justify adding a guillotine. But I'm not a fan of formalized emoticons anyhow.
(Score: 2) by Booga1 on Thursday July 23 2020, @04:29PM
Personally, I think the formalized icons are a waste of time and effort. The symbols mean different things to different people and they often make communication less clear. On top of that, I don't see why they need to remove symbols either. People will say what they're going to say. Simply dropping symbols doesn't stop anyone from threatening someone, no matter whether they use a guillotine icon or something else.