A small change can spark a huge controversy. This can happen it involves big names and philosophy.
To meet Android P, tech giant Google added hundreds of new emojis, and tweaked some existing ones. A Google spokesperson confirmed that the change to the salad emoji was made to improve "inclusion".
Here, Google has quietly changed its salad emoji to make it vegan.
Before, the salad emoji contained some leafy greens, sliced tomato and a hard-boiled egg. The update removed the egg so that the salad becomes a more suitable emoji for vegans. This tiny tweak has sparked anger among internet users, in which they've shared their opinions on social media networks.
There's big talk about inclusion and diversity at Google so if you need any evidence of Google is making this priority may I direct your attention to the emoji— we've removed the egg in Android P beta 2, making this a more inclusive vegan salad. pic.twitter.com/kzHY0A9ZjG
— Jennifer (@jenniferdaniel) June 6, 2018
What they are trying to say is that, Google is guilty for "excluding non-vegans."
Jennifer's tweets were quickly rounded on by angry emoji enthusiasts.
Realizing that her tweet has sparked some debate, Jennifer clarified by saying:
Hello carnivores, vegans and everyone in between! Just want to clarify that the goal of salad emoji redesign was to create an image more faithful to unicode's description. "A bowl of healthy salad, containing lettuce, tomato, and other salad items such as cucumber." Bon appetite!
— Jennifer (@jenniferdaniel) June 6, 2018
Besides the controversial egg salad emoji, Google has also included some gender-neutral emojis. For example, there is a family icon with two gender-neutral parents, rather than a clear man and woman icons.
What's more, Google is also making some of its emojis a bit more fun to see.
We're slowly giving some our emojis more love. Our goat is no longer so angry. The turtle really needed a hug. And we gave the Grinning Face With One Large and One Small Eye some anti-anxiety meds. pic.twitter.com/HUKQe0EeAs
— Jennifer (@jenniferdaniel) June 6, 2018