A purported anti-LGBT emoji popped up in an update of the iPhone's current iOs, causing a moment of disbelief among its userbase. A Twitter user going by the handle/name of "Mitchell" was among the first to spot the glitch: an "LGBT" coded rainbow with a crossed-out "NO" symbol over it - that's at least what an educated public was led to believe.
In all fairness, the glitch as we've come to know it does look the part of an anti-LGBT symbol at first sight. "So is Apple gonna explain their anti-LGBT emoji or are we really just living in some awful twisted timeline?" asked a particularly bemused Tweeter who'd come to the same conclusions as "Mitchell" and thousands of over astonished iPhone users.
As it turns out, the anti-LGBT emoji, however offensive, is something of an illusory hack. According to the following expert on the subject, the anti-LGBT is but the latest in a series of Unicode hacks. In fact, you can code the "crossed-out symbol" over just about any emoji made available through the iPhone's character list. With a little coding, iPhone users can be as hateful as the gates of hell. So, how did this anti-LGBT emojis pop up uninvited? Emojipedia has a full entry dedicated to this phenomenon which is titled "Fun Emoji Hacks." You can read about it here.