Twitter emoji symbolic for Aborigines

SYDNEY -- Hundreds of Australian aboriginal leaders gathered Friday at Uluru, a sandstone monolith in Australia's central desert, to call for a road map to a treaty and to enshrine an indigenous representative body in the constitution. Around the same time, a new emoji was quietly added to Twitter: the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags.

The emoji showing both flags together amounts to a small, very small, action, but the digital recognition carries deep significance.

"Emojis are huge," said Luke Pearson, a digital producer of the indigenous radio unit of the Australian Broadcasting Corp. "We use them all day, every day, on so many different platforms. They aren't entirely insignificant, because they've become such a core part of our communications."

The new emoji arrived the same week Australia was commemorating the 50th anniversary of the vote to include its indigenous people in the national census. In a week that includes National Sorry Day and the anniversary of the landmark Mabo case, which dealt with indigenous land rights, the flags amount to a form of recognition that can be easily shared; they become available on Twitter when users include certain hashtags, such as #IndigenousAU, #ReconciliationWeek, or #1967Referendum.

A Section on 05/28/2017

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