Tag: emoji
The Thumbs-Up Emoji Is Somehow Now a Hostile Move – CNET
How to Upload Custom Emoji in Slack
Emoji statuses and ‘infinite’ reactions are among Telegram’s latest features
Telegram’s throwing a bone to its non-premium users this month by extending them access to more emoji reactions. The feature now lets all users choose from “dozens” of emoji that they can drop onto message bubbles as an alternative way to contribute to the conversation. And if you’re paying the $4.99 a month for Premium, don’t worry, you’re now getting an endless supply of reaction options by way of the custom animated emoji packs released last month, as well as other new features.
Paying Telegram Premium subscribers can now use all animated emoji as a status, in addition to the default seven that can change colors based on the theme. For instance, you can choose a rotating controller emoji to indicate you’re busy fragging on your Xbox….
These Are the Least Understood Emoji, According to Adobe
All language is metaphorical in nature. Words have no inherent meaning, and your ability to “understand” language is based entirely on habit, personal experience, and context. And if you don’t believe me, go ask your family members what your favorite emojis mean.
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Facebook’s anti-vax carrot emoji, explained
To avoid censorship for the spread of COVID-19 misinformation, anti-vax groups on Facebook have begun coding their messages with the carrot emoji, according to a report from the BBC. The emoji is used in place of the word “vaccine” to avoid the wrath of Facebook’s automated moderator algorithms.
The BBC reports that these groups often share unverified claims of people being killed or injured by the COVID-19 vaccine. One group with over 200,000 members states in its rules that members must “use code words for everything” and that posters cannot “use the c word, v word or b word ever” (covid, vaccine, booster).
According to the BBC, the algorithm the Meta-owned platform uses for moderation tends to focus on words, not images. This is unsurprising news. Back in July 2021, a Bloomberg report detailed how social media algorithms perform poorly in detecting abuse through emojis.
Marc Owen Jones, a disinformation researcher and associate professor at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar, was invited to join one such group and shared the group’s “very odd” attempt to evade censorship. “Initially I was a little confused,” Jones said in a tweet. “And then it clicked – that it was being used as a way of evading, or apparently evading, Facebook’s fake news detection algorithms.”
“My sister, 57, rushed to the hospital with breathing problems. She has two 🥕🥕 and the b🥕,” one poster wrote. Another wrote, “My uncle 55 , brain tumor after 🥕🥕.” Based on Jones’ screenshots, a common theme in these posts is users blaming health problems associated with getting older on the COVID vaccine.
Users in that thread also pointed out some other emojis that anti-vax groups would use, like the 🍺 emoji (booster / booze-ster) or the 🍎 emoji back when the CDC started allowing kids to be vaccinated.
A cursory search on Twitter of “🥕 covid” will bring up hundreds of tweets in French posted by users adorning the carrot in their display names. A Google translation of some of these tweets shows users questioning the validity of COVID-19 vaccine measurements put in place by French President Emmanuel Macron.
Social Media’s Auto-Moderation Problem
The use of emojis as code for something more sinister is not new. And not in a darkly funny crab emoji way but in an “I’m trying to be slick about my bigotry” kind of way.
Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter have come under fire in the past for lackluster responses in stopping racist abuse toward Black soccer players. Internet trolls would post emojis of monkeys and bananas as racist gestures using imagery often associated with racist stereotypes of Black people.
Another way bad actors get away with spreading falsehoods and hate across the internet involves the use of word camouflage. In a research study by Ana Romero-Vicente, a researcher with EU DisinfoLab, this technique involves the subtle tweaking of keywords so that they are “understandable for users while remaining undetected to social networks’ content moderation systems.” For example, “v4c11ne” would mean “vaccine.”
Romero states that tackling this phenomenon of word camouflaging is a complex task that requires blocking lists on social media to be constantly re-evaluated and optimize to achieve a delicate balance between misinformation and content that doesn’t violate the rules.
Facebook for its part is actively attempting to shut down groups that try to spread vaccine information. The platform’s Help Center states that it will remove “Claims that COVID-19 vaccines are experimental if the context of the claim also suggests that vaccinated people are taking part in a medical experiment,” and “Claims that COVID-19 vaccines kill or seriously harm people.”
This talk of moderating COVID content may be moot, however. Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs wrote in July that he questioned whether “the time is right for us to seek input from the Oversight Board about our measures to address COVID-19 misinformation, including whether those introduced in the early days of an extraordinary global crisis remains the right approach for the months and years ahead.” In other words, Meta may soon stop trying to take down anti-vax content altogether.
The Eggplant Emoji Makes You Less Likable, According to New Report
[…] Adobe reported a top three and a bottom three emoji for flirting. The survey found that Face Blowing a Kiss, Smiling Face with Hearts, and Smiling Face with Heart-Eyes would make someone appear more likable while Pile of Poo, Angry Face, and the less-than-suggestive Eggplant would make someone appear less likable. This is noteworthy since 72% of users will send an emoji in a conversation with someone they are interested in or flirting with — just steer clear of the eggplant. Interestingly, Adobe found significant differences in how males and females use emojis. 76% of males reported using emoji more during flirting as opposed to the 68% of females that claimed the same, while 27% of men claimed to have ended a relationship with an emoji compared to 15% of women.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
31 new emoji just landed today, check out what made it on the list
Top Five Favorite Emoji in the United States Are 😂, 👍, ❤️, 🤣, and 😢
Face with tears of joy, thumbs up, red heart, and crying face have been popular in past years, but rolling on the floor laughing face has supplanted 😘 (face blowing a kiss) in 2022. 🤣😂, 🥰😘, and 😘❤️ are the top three favorite emoji pairings.
💩 (pile of poo), 😠 (angry face), and 😳 (flushed face) are the emojis survey respondents least like to use, though as with favorites, results vary by state.
To find the most popular emoji in the United States, Adobe surveyed 5,000 emoji users, and 91 percent of respondents said they use emoji to “lighten the mood of a conversation.” 73 percent said that people who use emoji are “friendlier, funnier, and cooler” than those who don’t, and half of respondents said they’re more likely to respond to a message if it contains an emoji.
71 percent of people said that emoji are an “important conversation tool” for understanding one another, and 75 percent said they “feel more connected” to people who use emoji. 71 percent of emoji users use emoji at work, and 68 percent of people like when people use emoji at work.
Among emoji users, 75 percent send at least 50 emoji in their online messages per day, and most emoji are sent via text messages.
Adobe’s full survey goes into detail on the most misunderstood emoji, emoji use in dating, emoji use across generations, and more, with the report available on the Adobe website.
This article, “Top Five Favorite Emoji in the United States Are 😂, 👍, ❤️, 🤣, and 😢” first appeared on MacRumors.com
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The real meaning behind the crab emoji is darker than you think
Each time a prominent public figure dies, you might see more crab emoji 🦀 on Twitter, Reddit, and the comment section of Instagram posts. It’s a not-so-subtle nod in celebration of the passing of the reign, influence, or life of a particularly controversial character.
There’s been a bit of a resurgence of the crab emoji lately in response to the death of Queen Elizabeth II, particularly in Reddit subs like r/COMPLETEANARCHY and r/CuratedTumblr. All of these crab emoji are in reference to the “Crab Rave,” a house song from Noisestorm that was released by Monstercat in 2018 as part of an April Fools’ campaign. The music video — which has received more than 200 million views on YouTube — shows a bunch of crabs raving on an island.
The crabs are dancing. They’re celebrating. They’re overjoyed. They’re crabs. And all to the tune of one of the more popular, standard Beat Saber song options.
Because the video was practically created in a lab for memeification, it swiftly turned into a joke online. First, according to Know Your Meme, YouTuber apandah posted a video to Twitter titled “Obama is Gone” with the song playing in the background and the crabs raving in response to then-President Barack Obama leaving office.
Since then, the meme has been simplified and morphed into just the crab emoji 🦀. Sometimes the emoji is posted just as a general hype moment but, more often than not, it’s posted to say “good riddance.” Some people are adding it to their social media names and bios, too.
Comedian Jaboukie Young-White posted the crab rave dance when Rush Limbaugh died. Some people posted the crab emoji when then-President Donald Trump got kicked off of social media platforms.
This isn’t the first time we’ve used emoji as another form of linguistic expression online.
Snake emoji 🐍 was used in the aftermath of the Taylor Swift / Kim Kardashian / Kanye West drama to call various people involved snakes. And Beyoncé fans spam people with the bee emoji 🐝 when anyone attacks Queen B. While those aren’t particularly positive examples, it’s fairly common for national symbols like flowers, animals, and flags to become a signal of solidarity and strength online during difficult times for nations.
Research from The Conversation shows that after the November 2015 Paris attacks, the most common support emoji were flags from countries like the UK 🇬🇧 and the U.S. 🇺🇸, alongside the French flag 🇫🇷. When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, folks used sunflower emoji 🌻 to show solidarity with Ukraine, the country’s national flower.
This is all to say that if you’re feeling crabby, maybe think twice before adding the emoji 🦀 to your tweet.