Samantha Zucker
Aug 9, 2017 · 1 min read

Hey Josh,

I actually fully understand how the emojis are working on the unicode end and don’t have a problem with how Unicode built the technology. There’s pretty much no where else in the world (that I could come up with) where a increased number of characters would be a problem, so it’s not Unicode’s issue to build this to meet a constraint they don’t have.

My issue is explicitly with Twitter’s decision not to consider the social consequences of their decision to use the technology as is instead of working towards a solution that solves it given the constraints they built. I think it’s incredibly fair to say this is their responsibility given their strongly held belief in free speech above all else, and that they made this problem for themselves. If they want to be the stewards of free speech they need to be accountable to everyone’s free speech. This bug, while small, is a clear example of not prioritizing the speech of the majority of people in our country and the world.

My larger point is that this sort of decision making for efficiency is exactly the sort of thing that continues to embed discriminatory behavior, even if it wasn’t intended. While Emojis may be a small moment, it is a really clear example that shows what makes up systemic discrimination and how bias decisions in tech lead us to this point.

    Samantha Zucker

    Written by

    Freelance design strategist working with companies hell bent on changing the world.

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