The Black Lives Matter movement shows no sign of slowing down, and remains at the forefront of many conversations abroad and in South Africa.

Cricket in the country is currently having its moment of reckoning, with black players and coaches past and present speaking out about what they say is subtle and overt racist behaviour within the system.

Thankfully, many white players have now voiced support for the cause, with Faf du Plessis taking to Instagram to say that “all lives don’t matter UNTIL black lives matter”.

All of this has bugger all to do with the new iOS update, so I’ll stop waffling and hand over to The Verge:

The iOS keyboard will autosuggest all three Black fist emoji when you type the phrase “Black Lives Matter” or the acronym “BLM” if you’re on Apple’s newly released iOS 13.6 software update or the latest iOS 14 beta…

The emoji, technically known as the “Raised Fist” emoji, has increasingly become a symbol of solidarity with people protesting against racial inequality and police brutality since the death of George Floyd.

If they’re not popping up, you clearly haven’t updated to iOS 13.6, or iOS 14 beta.

It’s likely that Apple has made the change due to usage of the medium-dark and dark skin Raised Fist emoji spiking during May and June.

All in all, you’ll be saving a little time:

 By automatically recommending Raised Fist, people will be able to more easily include the emoji in texts and social media posts about the Black Lives Matter movement without having to separately navigate to the emoji keyboard and search for it.

Emojis aren’t exactly going to change the world, though, so Apple needs to back this up with action:

Thankfully, that looks to be happening:

Apple has also made moves outside of software to promote racial equality, including announcing a $100 million Racial Equity and Justice Initiative on June 11th. And on Thursday, Apple announced it has expanded its partnerships with Historically Black Colleges and Universities to bring coding education opportunities to the schools’ nearby communities.

You can read more on that $100 million initiative here.

As someone who uses emojis sparingly (I prefer actual words, and endless GIFs), this iOS update is largely irrelevant, but more power to you if you want to bust out those Raised Fist emojis.

Now, if I could just get this ‘ducking’ thing to let me type swear words.

[source:verge]