Apple vows to expand racial diversity of its emoticons
Apple has responded to criticism from singer Miley Cyrus and actor Tahj Mowry about the lack of diversity shown in its emoticons by pledging to update the standard emoji character set with a new batch of faces.
Cyrus has demanded that Apple include emojis that represent black people to reflect a more equal society.
Katie Cotton, Apple’s vice president of worldwide corporate communications, said: “Our emoji characters are based on the Unicode standard, which is necessary for them to be displayed properly across many platforms. There needs to be more diversity in the emoji character set, and we have been working closely with the Unicode Consortium in an effort to update the standard.”
The popular icons first originated on iOS devices in Japan and have been subject to a campaign for the past year to provide a broader range of appearances.