Colorado State: 'avoid gendered emojis'

Colorado State University (CSU) has released a new social media guide, encouraging organizations on campus to make their social media “more inclusive” by “avoiding gendered emojis” and more.

The “10 Ways to Make Your Social Media Channels More Inclusive” guide was released as result of the CSU Inclusive Communications Task Force and gives a “quick guide for inclusive communications,” according to the webpage.

“Use inclusive pronouns,” Colorado State directs students. “Use the yellow emojis when addressing a diverse audience...avoid gendered emojis when possible.” The guide also advises students to caption photos and videos, use title case for hashtags, and share a variety of perspectives. 

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”Both shape our perception of the world in both subtle and obvious ways. As social media managers and marketers, that power comes with great responsibility,” the online guide states.

Young Americans for Liberty at CSU Chairman Ethan Burshek called the guidelines “absurd,” “overly restrictive,” and “completely unenforceable” when speaking with Campus Reform.

“[CSU] has absolutely no control over its student[s] or social media and as far as I know they don’t even check it,” Burshek said. “It’s entirely a farce. It’s just a virtue signal that they’re putting out.”

Burshek also joked about the yellow emoji guideline, claiming that  “progressives” used to think they represented white people: “A month ago the progressives were telling us that the yellow emojis represented white people, and now they’re saying it’s the generic one.” 

Commenting on the guide as a whole, Burshek said “I don’t think anyone actually cares what emojis you use.”

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Burshek did, however, give credit to the university because, overall, they have not limited speech in the past.

“CSU is very open to free speech. They’ll release speech codes that have suggestions, but there’s no one who’s actually going to sanction you for saying anything,” Burshek said.

Colorado State did not respond to a request for comment.

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