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Apple sparks Palestinian flag emoji controversy

10 April 2024
By Chris Vallance,
Technology reporter, BBC News

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BBC A screen shot of the word Jerusalem typed into a message on an iPhone using the
latest iOS showing the Palestinian flag suggestion beneath.BBC
A screenshot of the suggestion.
Apple has been criticised after the Palestinian flag emoji was automatically
suggested to iPhone users who type "Jerusalem."

Both Israel and the Palestinians hold competing claims to the ancient city.

TV presenter Rachel Riley, who is Jewish, noted on social media that national flags
were not suggested for other capitals.

Apple has told the BBC that the change - which followed a recent software update -
was not intentional.

The issue will be remedied in a future software update, Apple says, but it is not
known how rapidly this will happen.

Writing on X (formerly Twitter), Ms Riley demanded that Apple explain what had
happened.

"Showing double standards with respect to Israel is a form of antisemitism", she

argued.

The issue, according to Apple, relates to a feature called predictive emoji.

iPhones can suggest emojis when words are typed in messages, and other apps.

The notes accompanying the latest iOS update say that it includes "new emojis."

Deep divisions
The status of Jerusalem is one of the thorniest disputes in the conflict between
Israel and the Palestinians.

Israel sees the whole of Jerusalem as its eternal, undivided capital, while
Palestinians claim the eastern part as the capital of their hoped-for future state.

East Jerusalem, along with the West Bank and Gaza Strip, were captured by Israel
from Jordan and Egypt in a war in 1967, and have since been viewed internationally
as occupied Palestinian territory.
This is not the first time a big tech company has found itself embroiled in the
bitter dispute between Israel and the Palestinians.

Last year rival tech giant Meta had to apologise after a bug resulted in it adding
"terrorist" to the biographies of some Instagram users describing themselves as
Palestinian.

Meta said it fixed a problem "that briefly caused inappropriate Arabic

translations" in some of its products.

Meta sorry for Palestinian 'terrorist' bio error

Israel
Palestinian territories
Emojis
Apple
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