Feeling like screaming those expletives to someone over chat? May as well just spell it out loud now. Microsoft apparently took time to polish and review its code of ethics for private chats by cleaning up its list of rude emoticons over Skype service.
Emoticons are those smiley face icons now being used in conversations whether over instant messaging or text. The earlier emoticons were sweet and simple, but obviously, even emoticon times are a-changing.
Among the emoticons being questioned are that of the legs of a woman wearing a pair of high heels and a smiley face with a middle finger. The modification was done quietly over a month ago, during a version upgrade to 6.14 in February.
Gathered reports say the removal was because the emoticons were potentially offensive to some users, and to think that these emoticons were hidden and separate to the standard range of icons.
"These hidden emoticons indeed got removed with [update] 6.14 because of them or their shortcodes having the potential to offend some users," an unidentified community manager on Skype forums explains.
Although some of them were already removed, a few other emoticons remain hidden and unchanged such as a smiley face smoking or looking drunk, or that guy who bends over and drops his trousers. The censors might have overlooked these potentially offensive emoticons.
While some Skype users were relieved of the removal, others complained about it on the site's forum. Reports say a particular area in the forums was created for those users who wished to have those icons returned.
The removal introduced new icons though, says research. For instance, type "(sheep)" and here comes a defecating sheep. Type "(shielddeflect)" and see Captain America save the day.
Skype was launched 10 years ago and purchased by Microsoft in 2011. With the purchase, Microsoft phased out its own instant messaging service, Windows Live Messenger, in 2013 to make way for Skype. At present, Skype has rivals in the industry such as Viber, FaceTime of Apple and Hangouts of Google.
It turns out Skype isn't the only one being cleaned up by Microsoft. Even Xbox One got somehow regulated in 2013, wherein users who upload excessively profane videos through the console would lose account privileges or get suspended to access the service. It didn't give further details, however, as to how the language in video uploads be judged or moderated.
As we've said, next time someone is annoying, may as well spell it out loud now.
