Re: Petition to ban Google from designing emoji

Again, Unicode is not intended to and cannot ban specific designs of characters including emoji. Unicode is responsible creating a list of characters that should be supported, with the goal of making textual communication online possible through a standardised encoding. Unicode is not responsible for designing these characters, that is up to the vendors to decide.
From Unicodes Website: "Unicode provides a unique number for every character, no matter what the platform, no matter what the program, no matter what the language.”; "The Unicode Consortium was founded to develop, extend and promote use of the Unicode Standard, which specifies the representation of text in modern software products and standards.” (http://www.unicode.org/standard/WhatIsUnicode.html)

If you wish that a certain vendor - like Google or Apple - democratise their process of designing characters you should make that clear to them. Posting on this list will do absolutely nothing.

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> On 18 May 2017, at 19:53, Shakil Anwar via Unicode <unicode_at_unicode.org> wrote:
>
> A more democratic solution is to allow the global public to both submit and vote on emoji designs. Rather than allow a small number of (probably) north american white males to dictate emojis in a 'colonial' process based on their own world and personal view.
> The Unicode consortium can vote to change the process and now the proposal has been made it will speak volumes if Google, Apple etc. choose not to democratise.
> ICANN chose to democratise their processes ; so can Unicode.
>
> On 18 May 2017 at 15:16, Gabriel von Dehn via Unicode <unicode_at_unicode.org <mailto:unicode_at_unicode.org>> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> the Unicode Consortium does not and cannot “ban” vendors from designing emojis the way they wish. Unicode merely gives recommendations on how the characters should be displayed. Think of the different designs on different platforms like different fonts you can use (because that is actually what they are): They all look slightly different and no one would hold a petition for the design of characters in a font to change.
>
> As for the gendered Emojis, those are in the Unicode specification now: http://emojipedia.org/emoji-4.0/ <http://emojipedia.org/emoji-4.0/>
>
> If you do not like the upcoming Emoji design from Google (or anything about the upcoming version of Android), you can report to Google directly, but posting on this List won’t help.
>
>
>> On 18 May 2017, at 14:40, zelpa via Unicode <unicode_at_unicode.org <mailto:unicode_at_unicode.org>> wrote:
>>
>> http://blog.emojipedia.org/rip-blobs-google-redesigns-emojis/ <http://blog.emojipedia.org/rip-blobs-google-redesigns-emojis/>
>>
>> Is this some kind of joke? Have Google put ANY thought into their emoji design? First they bastardise the cute blob emoji, then they make their emoji gendered, now they've literally just copied Apple's emoji. It's sickening. Disgusting. I propose we hold a petition for the Unicode Consortium to ban Google from designing emoji in the future, and make them revert back to the Android 5 designs. Everyone in favour of this please leave a response, anybody not in favour please rethink your opinion.
>
>
Received on Thu May 18 2017 - 12:37:55 CDT