“Police in the Kirov region are investigating whether the tiny yellow couples present in Apple’s built-in iOS keyboard pose a violation of the country’s widely-criticized law banning the ‘propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations to minors,'” Corinne Purtill reports for Reuters.
MacDailyNews Note: Mac’s have also used emoji since the release of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion on July 20, 2011.
“The broadly-worded 2013 legislation has been used to arrest and detain peaceful demonstrators of LGBT rights.” Purtill reports, “The emoji suit was launched in August by Yaroslav Mikhailov, a Kirov attorney who previously made international headlines for instigating a police investigation into an opposition journalist who posted an Instagram photo of herself dressed up as an Orthodox priest.”
“If found in violation of the law,” Purtill reports, “Apple could face fines of 800,000 to 1 million rubles ($12,200-15,250) and a three-month suspension in Russia.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Although emoji have become increasingly popular after their international inclusion in Apple’s iPhone and despite the fact that Apple Color Emoji is the most significant font released in this century so far, the Unicode Consortium, not Apple, is responsible for maintaining the Unicode standard, which includes emoji.
SEE ALSO:
Gun control advocates launch campaign to ban gun emoji from iPhones – July 31, 2015
Bacon emoji is coming; pregnant woman and tuxedoed man, too! – May 21, 2015
Apple releases iOS 8.3 with new emojis, new Siri languages and more – April 8, 2015
Mac OS X 10.10.3 Public Beta: All-new Photos app, new emoji, and more – March 4, 2015
Some Asians angered by Apple’s ‘racist’ yellow emoji – February 24, 2015
Apple to deliver new racially diverse emoji – February 23, 2015
This is what happens when you mix religious ignorance and law. This law was pushed by American evangelists and a particularly nasty politician in St. Petersburg, with an assist by the Russian Orthodox church. It’s exactly the sort of thing Huckabee, Cruz, and the rest of the clown car are pushing for.
You can pretend it’s “marriage” all you want, but it’s not.
You can believe it isn’t marriage, but in the eyes of the law of the land, it is. And that is what matters.
to our friend “Fact” here, only ancient prejudice and fear matter, the ingredients of mob rule… the law is secondary or even worse
I’m with Fact. I think Unicode Consortium should also be investigated for the use of emoji portraying the eating of shellfish and the wearing of mixed fabrics – also abominations in the eyes of the lord.
The kind of marriage we have today in western nations is historically rare. Men have been able to have more than one wife; it was decided by their parents; it was to establish the son who would get all wealth and power of his father. This is still true in a lot of the world today. This is in the Bible. Baring people from marrying has been a way to keep people powerless. Slaves could not get married so they could be sold individually. Countries that allowed slaves to get married owners could not break up the family. Not allowing mixed races marriage was a way of keeping segregation strong. The leaders of the far right are opposed to history in schools because they know their ides have failed in the past.
And you are welcome to pretend that it is not marriage all you want, please just also pretend you can’t comment while on this site, thank you very much
And you’re allowed only one marriage in a lifetime, so by divorcing and getting married again, every day is living the sin of adultery. Bible told me so.
Fact is just trolling. It’s best to ignore people like him. The anonymity alone of his posts should tell you he doesn’t stand behind his words. It’s really too bad that incitive posts like this are allowed to remain at MDN. But then…. it does make for more hits.
Thats a load of ribbish your so full of Bs you cant see your hate.
Not sure who you are addressing, but your unicode standard apparently does not include punctuation or grammar check, Mr. tactileman.
More importantly, this “investigation” is stupid since those emojis only came to iPhones because they are part of updated Unicode standard.
This means that they will come to Android and Windows phones, too.
What they will do? Try to ban all of smartphones?
My life fades. The vision dims. All that remains are memories. I remember a time of chaos… ruined dreams… this wasted land. But most of all, I remember The Road Warrior. The man we called “Max.” To understand who he was, you have to go back to another time… A time before the great Emoji War of the early 21st century, two mighty warrior tribes went to war, and touched off a blaze which engulfed them all.
Nice to be remembered. Thanks.
I grew up thinking Russia was something to fear. Now I think they are just stupid.
You still need to fear them. This emoji thing is trivial (and stupid). But you still need to fear them.
One should always fear stupidity: from my observations, it appears to be contagious. People willingly join ISIS; Russians chose an idiot for a leader (which we seem to do more often than not in the U.S. as well); and our political leaders keep moving our parties to the extremes with little chance of compromise. The sheep populace are more and more willingly jerked around and don’t see that the road ahead is filled with danger and tragedy.
Russia is nothing to fear. Russia is a very powerful nation. Enough power to destroy the world. But ultimately they are sane. No point in destroying the world you’d like to dominate.
Apple shout just pay the $15,000 approx fine and carry on providing the emoji
Those emoji are lying. Those kids with two dads or two mons shouldn’t be smiling:
Children raised by same-sex couples are more likely to be unemployed, receive public assistance and to have an extramarital affair than children raised by two married, biological parents.
Keep on with your “progressive” experiments, Libs. You are child abusers. If you can’t kill them in the womb and sell off their body parts, you’ll settle for emotionally scarring them for life with with sham “marriages.”
It seems you are the one who is emotionally scarred.
@Fact
Are you Josh Duggar? You sure sound like him 😉
If only everyone could be raised in a fine Christian family like the Duggars!
I would be more influenced by the studies presented if they from the American Academy of Pediatrics (a professional association of pediatrician a founded 1930) rather than the American College of Pediatricians (a socially conservative association of pediatricians).
The problem is that there has not been a lot of children raised by married same sex couples yet for real analysis. There have been children with gay parents; however their family life was generally in divorced, single parent, or with other family members (grandparents, aunts, uncles etc.) Factors that are issues in straight families and can leed to problems. The truth a lot of people don’t want to face is a lot of children are not living in non two parent households. Stable two parent homes have been the best for children, however that is not a option for everyone. When we have a lot of kids raised in stable two parent gay families then we will see real true comparisons.
Hey, “Fact,” what about the large number of children of divorced male-female parents?
Go troll your reactionary BS somewhere else.
I think Apple should modify the emoji so that they look more like Putin.
…with Obama 😉
Hey, Russia….🖕
When I was growing up, the two women living together, across the street – the most amazing women, said they were cousins.
We are talking about emoji here. How is equal representation of population demographics, propaganda? The definition of propaganda is to promote political views, usually lies, but above the background din.
What emojis do is bring all situations on an even ground, adding to the din. Two guys could be just that, two guys. Think, “Two And A Half Men.” There are many non-political ways to consider this. Children don’t know what this is. Children don’t really care. But if they ask, the parent can say whatever they want. We already lie about the Easter Bunny, Santa Clause, (in Russia it’s an old Father Frost and his very young Snow Maiden – think about that one). So why not tell their kids, it’s two brothers, it’s two friends and an adopted orphan.
We paint the world with our own words. This legal matter is just spitefulness to gain attention.
The investigation is coming from a law suit, from a lawyer, from a regional town. They can come up with any judgement they want, but it won’t be anything that Apple needs to deal with. Maybe they will hit a local Apple Store with the fine. (wait there are none.)
It’s a publicity stunt.
This is exactly what to expect from a racist and ignorant country like Russia!!! No wonder its like the anus of the world.
It would appear that the US is in a race to the bottom with them.
If USA Neo-Feudalism (aka Corporatocracy) isn’t halted, I’ll have to agree. We already feel creeping Totalitarianism in the USA, if only via the Snowden leaks about #MyStupidGovernment refusing to honor the US Constitution.
Re-Revolution is required.
They’re so lucky I can’t draw.
So, not to be obvious, but I can’t imagine that a minor can legally execute a phone service contract in Russia and sign up for an iPhone anyway…
So isn’t this a moot point?
Sadly no. In Russia this law is being used to drive LGBT people out of their communities. You see, if you are a gay couple children might see you, so you have to leave, right?
The sad thing is that whilst Russia has always been somewhat socially backwards and even today has a Master and Serf mentality amongst the population it never used to be that bad for LGBT couples. The rise in violent homophobia is pretty recent, and of course fueled by those in the Kremlin as a distraction for the nation whilst they pilfer the coffers.
Gay is the new Jew. The fascist needed to take away people’s rights. They started with a hated minority and made up lies about them to keep people’s attention away from the business and military combo that took over their government.
EXACTLY. As I point out below, it’s just the usual Totalitarian Tactics typical of a FAILed society/country/civilization. It can’t hold itself together, so it has to create BEARS to fight and kill as a method of bullshit national unity. Soooo old.
💩💩💩💩💩
YES, as has been extensively covered in the worldwide press, they ARE gay couples.
Now create at shite-storm about it Russia and demonstrate, yet again, to the world what a fallen civilization you have become. Back to ye olde totalitarianism bullshit. Find the scapegoat and KILL IT! Same old story. Same old shite.