Month: August 2021

Police say they expect to make arrests after footage emerged appearing to show Rangers supporters singing a sectarian song before Sunday’s Old Firm game.

A video on social media showed a group being escorted by police through Glasgow city centre while chanting an anti-Irish song referencing the famine.

Assistant Chief Constable Bernard Higgins defended the actions of the officers who came across the fans.

And he said anti-Irish Catholic behaviour was “wholly unacceptable”.

Inquiries are continuing to identify those involved, and he said “appropriate action” would be taken.

Rangers said the club “condemns all forms of racism, sectarianism and discrimination”.

Police Scotland earlier said it had launched an investigation after being made aware of sectarian singing by a group of people in the Jamaica Street area.

The incident happened before Rangers beat Celtic 1-0 at Ibrox in the first Old Firm game of the season.

Assistant Chief Constable Higgins said officers on patrol had come across the group in the city centre on Sunday.

“We did not facilitate this event and to say so is inaccurate,” he said.

“Due to the numbers and to ensure public and officer safety, additional officers were called to assist and, at this point, individuals’ details were noted and the group dispersed.

“A retrospective investigation into this anti-Irish Catholic singing has been launched and we are following up a number of lines of inquiry, including reviewing CCTV footage and footage on social media.

“I fully expect a number of arrests to be made.”

‘Wholly unacceptable’
He went on to say that anti-Irish Catholic behaviour was “wholly unacceptable”.

ACC Higgins added: “The challenges of the sectarianism still evident in some parts of Scotland are a much broader societal problem and, whilst policing will have a role to play in addressing the symptoms, its causes are a problem which require a more effective, joined-up, civic response.”

When the footage emerged, Health Secretary Humza Yousaf expressed “solidarity” with the Irish community and said he was “disgusted” by the incident.

“I am sure Police Scot will hold those responsible to account,” he posted on Twitter.

Scottish Greens co-leader Patrick Harvie said the images “ought to be shocking but are shamefully all too familiar”.

“At the very least, we need an assurance that every identifiable person in that crowd will face charges,” he added.

Glasgow Labour MSP Pam Duncan-Glancy said she was “absolutely disgusted at the behaviour displayed yesterday”.

‘Good track record’
A Scottish government spokesman said hatred and bigotry of any kind was “completely and utterly unacceptable”.

“Scotland is a diverse, multicultural and multi-faith society and we are fully committed to tackling all forms of bigotry, prejudice and racism, including anti-Irish racism.

“We support Police Scotland in taking appropriate and proportionate action to safeguard public safety.”

Speaking on The Nine, Prof Sir Tom Devine claimed: “This problem is very specific and it seems to be related to the supporting element who are attracted to Rangers FC.”

He added: “Rangers have recently had a good track record in dealing with elements of their fandom who behave badly.

“So they may have, with Glasgow City Council and the police, some time to see how they can deal with it.”

Rangers said in a statement: “Following an incident on Sunday, we repeat that Rangers FC condemns all forms of racism, sectarianism and discrimination. We are working with the police to identify any season tickets holders.

“As a club, we are proud of our Everyone Anyone campaign, led through the Rangers Charity Foundation, our work with a wide range of stakeholders and our ongoing dialogue with the Scottish government.

“Discrimination of all forms is a societal issue within Scotland. Those with influence within Scottish discourse should put their energy into eradicating this very serious issue across all sections of Scottish society who suffer sectarianism, discrimination and racism of any form.”

The UK is seeking international agreement to ensure the Taliban sticks to its commitment to allow safe passage for Afghans and foreign nationals who want to leave Afghanistan.

A series of diplomatic meetings will be held this week with Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab set to hold talks with Turkish and Qatari officials.

It comes as troops arrived back in the UK after ending their Afghan operation.

The government says it will continue to help people eligible for resettlement.

While more than 15,000 people have been evacuated by the UK since 14 August, hundreds of people who are entitled to come to the country have been left behind.

It is feared that about 800 to 1,100 eligible Afghans, including those who worked for the UK government, and 100 to 150 British were unable to get on evacuation flights.

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The Foreign Office says the UK and many other countries had been given assurances by the Taliban that foreign nationals and Afghan citizens with proper documentation will be allowed to leave the country.

Even if the Taliban is true to its word there is still uncertainty for those who are able to get to its borders as processing centres have yet to be set up in neighbouring countries.

During the series of meetings to be held on Monday officials will try to rally the international community to make sure the group keeps its promises.

Mr Raab will use a US-chaired virtual meeting to talk to representatives from Turkey and Qatar, who are considered to have more influence over the militant group than Western nations.

During the discussions, which will also include G7 counterparts and Nato, the foreign secretary is expected to underline that Afghanistan must not become a haven for terrorists, with stability in the region a priority, and will underline the need to hold the Taliban to account over human rights promises.

A meeting of the ambassadors from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – the US, France, China, Russia and the UK – will also take place.

On Sunday Boris Johnson said the UK and its allies would “engage with the Taliban not on the basis of what they say but what they do”.

“If the new regime in Kabul wants diplomatic recognition, or to unlock the billions that are currently frozen, they will have to ensure safe passage for those who wish to leave the country, to respect the rights of women and girls, to prevent Afghanistan from, again, becoming an incubator for global terror, because that would be disastrous for Afghanistan,” he said.

Labour has criticised the government’s handling of the crisis and accused ministers of being “missing in action”.

Shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy has written to Mr Raab warning him that the government was working with a “serious underestimate” of the number of people eligible for evacuation who had been left behind.

The BBC’s Lyse Doucet, in Kabul, says she and her colleagues are still receiving urgent SOS messages from Afghans who feel threatened by the Taliban.

They include musicians, university students and female politicians, and many say the Taliban are stopping them from leaving.

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What happens to Afghan refugees coming to the UK?
Arrivals on official flights enter a 10-day Covid quarantine in a hotel
Government officials and local authorities are trying to find them permanent homes
A shortage of suitable accommodation means many will be placed in hotels
Some will get refugee status and can live in the UK permanently
Others will get a five-year visa to live and work in the UK – and can then apply for permanent residence
Afghans arriving independently will enter the normal system for asylum claims – which has a backlog of 70,000 people
These people cannot settle, or work, while their claims are considered

Apple chief executive Tim Cook has received more than five million shares in the technology giant, as he marks ten years in the job.

A company filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) watchdog shows that he sold most of the shares for more than $750m (£550m).

It is part of a deal he struck when he took over from co-founder Steve Jobs.

The award depended on how well Apple’s shares performed compared to other firms on the S&P 500 stock index.

According to Apple’s filing with the SEC, Mr Cook was eligible for the award as the company’s shares had risen by 191.83% over the last three years.

It also noted that Apple’s share price has increased 1,200% since he became chief executive on 24 August 2011.

The company behind the iPhone, iPad and MacBook now has a market valuation of almost $2.5tn.

Last year, Mr Cook agreed to a new pay package that runs to the end of 2026.

A SEC filing also showed that earlier this week Mr Cook donated almost $10m worth of Apple shares to charity, without naming the recipient.

In 2015, Mr Cook said he would give away his entire fortune before he dies, and is known to have donated tens of millions of dollars to charity.

He currently has a net worth of around $1.5bn, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index.

Mr Cook has often spoken publicly about his concerns over issues including HIV and Aids, climate change, human rights and equality.

He follows other mega-rich US business people who have said they would give away all or a significant portion of their fortunes in their lifetimes.

In 2010, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and investment veteran Warren Buffett launched the Giving Pledge, which called on billionaires to give away at least half of their fortunes.

Earlier this year, Mr Buffett donated to charity another $4.1bn worth of shares in his company Berkshire Hathaway.

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OnlyFans has announced that it will delay making changes to policy on content creation, following a widespread backlash by its users.

The content subscription service announced plans last week to block sexually explicit photos and videos from October.

On Wednesday, it tweeted that it has “suspended the planned 1 October policy change”.

It is currently unclear if the delay will be permanent.

OnlyFans wrote on twitter that it would “continue to provide a home for all creators”.

“Thank you to everyone for making your voices heard,” said the company.

“We have secured assurances necessary to support our diverse creator community and have suspended the planned 1 October policy change.

“OnlyFans stands for inclusion and we will continue to provide a home for all creators.”

And in an email to its content creators, it said: “The proposed 1 October 2021 changes are no longer required, due to banking partners’ assurances that OnlyFans can support all genres of creators. “OnlyFans is committed to providing a safe and dependable platform for all creators and their fans.”

One OnlyFans creator, from London, welcomed the announcement but said those who had already found new homes for their content may still not return.

“So it is short-term good news for sex workers reliant on the platform – and I would like to see this as the start of increased support, celebration and championing of sex-worker rights by OnlyFans,” he told BBC News.

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“But I think there may well have been enough anxiety caused to see many models continuing the move to other platforms.”

OnlyFans makes its money by taking 20% of all payments made to its content creators.

The platform reported a 75% increase in new creators in May last year, during lockdown.

Fake ID
Wariness from investors was originally claimed to be the reason for last week’s announcement.

But founder Tim Stokely blamed banks penalising the company for supporting sex workers.

“JPMorgan Chase is particularly aggressive in closing accounts of sex workers or…  any business that supports sex workers,” he told the Financial Times on Tuesday.

But a JPMorgan spokeswoman told BBC News it had “no such policy”.

In June, a BBC News investigation found children had used fake ID to set up accounts on the site.

And the children’s commissioner for England said OnlyFans needed to do more to stop under-age users.

In response to the investigation, OnlyFans said it had closed the accounts flagged and refunded all active subscriptions.

Taxi driver Chris is obsessively checking his phone for updates.

“I’m set to lose almost 2,500 euros (£2,100) worth of cryptocurrency coins,” he says.

Chris describes himself as “a small crypto-holder from Austria” and is one of many victims of a hack attack on cryptocurrency exchange Liquid Global last week.

The company has insisted it will pay all customers who lost out in the $100m (£72.8m) attack.

But until they get the money back, many customers are worried.

Every time 38-year-old Chris picks up a customer in his ageing Volkswagen, he’s reminded of what’s at stake.

“My car is more than 20 years old and I could have bought a new used car with that money,” says Chris. “It’s not catastrophic, but still quite a sum for me. I need at least one year to save that sum.”

‘My stress is at eight out of 10’
In Indonesia, 27-year-old Dina says she is in shock. “I’m feeling so angry with the hackers, and I’m feeling stress for myself. I have around $30,000 and I need that money to live on. I’m just a housewife trying to make money from crypto.”

At the other end of the scale, a 42-year-old Norwegian doctor says he is struggling to concentrate, because he could lose a fortune that he’s watched grow over the years.

“My Liquid balance is 969,000 euros. It’s extremely worrying to me and my stress is at eight out of 10. I’m always thinking about it.”

Panicked parents
In Sydney, James describes the stress the hack has put on his parents, who managed to cash out at a loss before the company blocked transactions.

“My mum and dad had one Bitcoin on there, so about 70,000 Australian dollars (£37,000). It was, and is, a lot of money to them.

“There’s obviously stress created. At first they had no idea what was happening, then they felt they were basically forced to sell in a panic and withdraw which means they lost about A$10,000.”

Liquid Global was hacked last week, with the money unlikely to be recovered.

The Japanese firm said on Wednesday that it is carrying out a robust security review and wants to “reassure users that they will not suffer any loss due to the incident”.

Are exchanges safe?
Exchanges like Liquid are a vital part of the growing world of cryptocurrency. They are the websites that allow people to buy and sell digital coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum, and a place where many people leave their coins for safekeeping.

However, the safety of exchanges is questionable.

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Earlier this month, another crypto platform called Poly Network was also hacked, and lost $610m of its customers’ funds.

Dozens of other hacks against cryptocurrency platforms have seen at least £1.6bn stolen by hackers since 2014.

The largest-ever cryptocurrency hacks
BitGrail: $146m was hacked from the Italian exchange in 2018. It’s estimated that 230,000 BitGrail users lost funds.
KuCoin: $281m was stolen by suspected North Korean hackers from this attack on the Seychelles-based exchange in 2020. The company recovered most of the funds and refunded customers.
MtGox: $450m of mainly Bitcoin was hacked in 2014 which collapsed the Japanese exchange. None of the customers has been reimbursed yet.
Coincheck: $534m was stolen in 2018 from the Japanese exchange. Customers were eventually reimbursed.
Poly Network: $610m was hacked from the Chinese platform earlier this month in various coins. The hacker returned all the funds and customers have started being reimbursed.
Incidents involving tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions, of dollars are happening almost every few months and, because these platforms are largely unregulated, there’s no guarantee that customers get their money back.

Taking a ‘hair cut’
There have been cases of customers losing every digital penny or only being partially refunded – affectionately known as ‘taking a hair cut’.

“There will be zero hair cuts,” Seth Melamed, chief operating officer of Liquid Global, tweeted on Tuesday.

Financial commentator Frances Coppola says cryptocurrency systems are not learning lessons about security fast enough.

“The standard banking system is incredibly protective about security and it is regulated to death about it,” she said.

“Banks are actually suffering hacking attacks all the time. They’re just better defended, and also they have responsibility to reimburse their customers, which cryptocurrency platforms don’t have.”

She says it’s individual users who are more likely to be hacked or defrauded in traditional banking systems, which is happening all the time and costing millions.

Traditional bank hacks
Dr Amber Ghaddar, who has worked for big banks and is now a founder at crypto platform AllianceBlock, says traditional banking has seen its fair share of big hacks too.

She points to the hack of $81m suffered by a Bangladesh bank in 2016, and the 2017 incident at Union Bank of India that saw hackers steal $171m, which was later recovered. In each case, no customers lost out.

Dr Ghaddar says crypto-hacks are a symptom of a still new sector that’s growing too fast.

“Part of the problem is that these systems are built on open source technology. Open source is great because it uses the collective intelligence of a community to improve software and protocols, but one of the flip sides of open source is that some brilliant mind out there might find some weakness in the code.”

Dr Ghaddar thinks that the only way to prevent these attacks from happening is to bring in more regulation and rules.

“We need auditing and testing. We need to have various standards that need to be monitored in order to protect market integrity if we really want cryptocurrency to reach mass adoption.”

Crypto chaos
As well as cyber-attacks, everyday investors have been stung over the years by other types of crypto-catastrophe like so-called exit scams and rug pulls.

Investigators are still trying to ascertain how many millions, or maybe even hundreds of millions, were lost in the mysterious demise of the Africrypt exchange which collapsed earlier this year when the founders disappeared.

Customers of Canadian exchange QuadrigaCX are also still fighting for reimbursement after its founder died leaving $135m of coins unaccounted for in 2019.

The traditional finance system is of course littered with victims of large-scale pyramid schemes and other fraud which probably outweigh the losses in the cryptocurrency world.

But despite rapid growth, the crypto market is far smaller overall and recent history points to an industry-wide security problem.

As the $600m hacker warned in a recent public post: “We, the hackers, are the armed forces. If you are given weapons and guarding billions from the crowd while being anonymous, will you be a terrorist or the Batman?”

A news article about a doctor who died after receiving a Covid-19 vaccination was Facebook’s most viewed link in the US in the first quarter of 2021, a previously shelved report shows.

The piece – updated after a report said there was no proven link to the vaccine – was popular with vaccine sceptics.

The New York Times claimed that Facebook initially held back its report because it would “look bad”.

Facebook said the delay was in order to make “key fixes”.

The company had already published its “Widely Viewed Content” report for the second quarter of 2021, in which it found a word search promising to reveal “your reality” was the most popular post.

Similarly frivolous “question posts” formed most of the top 20.

But the New York Times revealed on Friday that the company had held back the earlier report covering January to March 2021.

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
View original tweet on Twitter
The paper alleged the report had not been shared because of fears that it would “look bad for the company”.

The most-viewed link was an article published by a mainstream US newspaper reporting that a doctor had died two weeks after getting a Covid-19 vaccine. The link attracted nearly 54 million views.

The article was subsequently updated to reflect the findings of the Medical Examiner that there was insufficient evidence to conclude whether the vaccine was responsible for the death.

Health bodies around the world have deemed the vaccine to be both safe and highly effective.

The first quarter report also revealed that the 19th most popular page on the platform belonged to the Epoch Times, which has been accused of spreading right-wing conspiracy theories.

The widespread circulation of this story of a doctor who died two weeks after receiving a Covid-19 jab exposes just how fertile a breeding ground Facebook can be for anti-vaccination content.

This can be partly explained by a committed network of activists, under a variety of different guises, who oppose coronavirus vaccines.

Promoting emotive, personal stories like this one on Facebook has been one of their primary tactics in scaring others from getting jabbed – even when, as was the case with this story, it turns out the death has no link to a Covid-19 vaccine at all.

Throughout the pandemic, these activists have muddled together real – and rare – stories of potential adverse side effects from vaccines with extreme online conspiracies, exploiting medical debates, genuine grief, and legitimate questions.

This also demonstrates the complexity of the disinformation ecosystem on social media – where users seize on a grain of truth, in this case an accurate news story, and spin it into a misleading narrative, without the facts to back it up.

I previously reported on how activists misappropriated the image of one woman’s foot on Facebook, after she took part in the Pfizer vaccine trials.

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After the publication of the NY Times’ story, Facebook released the report.

A spokesperson for the company said: “We considered making the report public earlier but since we knew the attention it would garner, exactly as we saw this week, there were fixes to the system we wanted to make.”

According to Facebook, these fixes included dealing with bugs in some of the queries on which the report was based.

The firm’s Andy Stone added more detail on a Twitter thread.

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
View original tweet on Twitter
Both the quarterly reports focus on what is most viewed in the USA, rather than what is engaged with through likes, comments, and shares.

They paint a different picture to data gathered by researchers and journalists with Crowdtangle, Facebook’s engagement-measuring tool, which suggests that right-leaning political content is dominant on the platform.

Facebook has fiercely pushed back against that idea, saying that only 6% of content seen by users is political.

But some misinformation researchers worry that Facebook is going cold on Crowdtangle.

The company did not answer a BBC question about whether the tool was under threat.

The subscription site OnlyFans, known for its adult content, has announced it will block sexually explicit photos and videos from 1 October.

People will still be able to post nude content on the site.

But this will need to be consistent with OnlyFans’ policies.

The announcement comes after BBC News had approached the company for a response to leaked documents concerning accounts which posted illegal content.

OnlyFans said the change had come after pressure from banking partners.

The site has grown during the pandemic and says it has 130 million users.

“In order to ensure the long-term sustainability of our platform, and continue to host an inclusive community of creators and fans, we must evolve our content guidelines,” OnlyFans said in a statement.

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The London-based social media site enables its creators to post nude videos and photos and charge subscribers for tips or a monthly fee.

Creators can post a range of content from cooking to fitness videos, but it is best known for pornography.

In return for hosting the material, OnlyFans takes a 20% share of all payments.

The documents – described as “compliance manuals” – show that although illegal content itself is removed, OnlyFans lets moderators give creators multiple warnings before closing accounts.

Moderation specialists and child protection experts say this shows OnlyFans has some “tolerance” for accounts posting illegal content.

In response to the BBC’s investigation, OnlyFans said the documents are not manuals or “official guidance”, it does not tolerate violations of its terms of service, and its systems and age verification go far beyond “all relevant global safety standards and regulations”.

The site, founded in 2016 by Essex businessman Tim Stokely, has come under fire in the past after a BBC News investigation found under-18s had used fake identification to set up accounts on the site. In June, BBC News found that under-18s sold explicit videos on the site, despite it being illegal for people to share indecent images of children.

After the BBC investigation, the children’s commissioner for England said OnlyFans needed to do more to stop underage users. In response to the investigation, OnlyFans said it had closed the accounts flagged and refunded all active subscriptions.

In July, the company’s first monthly transparency report said that it deactivated 15 OnlyFans accounts after finding indecent images of children on those accounts.

Leading Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Liquid has been hit by hackers, with almost $100m (£73m) estimated to have been stolen.

The company announced that some of its digital currency wallets have been “compromised.”

It is the second major theft of cryptocurrencies to take place in recent days.

Last week, digital token platform Poly Network was at the centre of a $600m heist.

“We are sorry to announce that #LiquidGlobal warm wallets were compromised, we are moving assets into the cold wallet,” the company said on Twitter.

So-called ‘warm’ or ‘hot’ digital wallets are usually based online and designed to allow users to access their cryptocurrencies more easily, while ‘cold’ wallets are offline and harder to access and therefore usually more secure.

Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic said its analysis showed that around $97m in cryptocurrencies had been taken, with Bitcoin and Ethereum tokens amongst the haul.

Liquid has said that it was tracing the movement of the stolen cryptocurrencies and working with other exchanges to freeze and recover the assets.

Founded in 2014, Liquid operates in over 100 countries and serves millions of customers around the world.

It is one of the world’s top 20 biggest cryptocurrency exchanges by daily trading volumes, according to CoinMarketCap data.

Last week, $600m was stolen from blockchain site Poly Network after a hacker exploited a vulnerability in its system.

“The amount of money you have hacked is one of the biggest in defi [decentralised finance] history,” Poly Network said.

Since then the hacker, who goes under the name of Mr White Hat, has returned around $427m of the assets.

Liquid is not the only Japanese cryptocurrency platform to be hit by a major heist.

In 2014, Tokyo-based exchange MtGox collapsed after almost half a billion dollars of bitcoin went missing, while Coincheck was hacked in a $530m heist in 2018.

The Wall Street watchdog has charged three former Netflix software engineers over an alleged insider trading ring that made $3m (£2.2m).

The ex-staff members and two close associates were named in court papers.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said confidential Netflix subscriber growth data was used in the scheme.

The information was allegedly used to trade the streaming giant’s shares ahead of its earnings reports.

The SEC alleged that Sung Mo Jun, a former software engineer at Netflix, was at the centre of a long-running scheme to illegally trade shares using insider information about the company’s subscriber growth.

According to the complaint, while working for Netflix in 2016 and 2017, he repeatedly passed non-public information to his brother and a close friend who both used it to trade ahead of multiple Netflix earnings announcements.

The SEC also alleged that after Sung Mo Jun left Netflix, he obtained confidential subscriber growth information from two other company insiders.

“We allege that a Netflix employee and his close associates engaged in a long-running, multimillion dollar scheme to profit from valuable, misappropriated company information,” said Erin Schneider, director of the SEC’s San Francisco regional office.

The SEC said it uncovered the alleged scheme using data analysis tools to find suspiciously successful patterns of trading.

At the same time, the US Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington filed a criminal case against four of the defendants, which could lead to prison sentences.

What is insider trading?

Insider trading is the buying and selling of a listed company’s shares or other securities, such as bonds or share options, based on information that is not available to the public.

In many countries, including the US and UK, insider trading is illegal as it is seen as giving an unfair advantage to those with access to the information.

While the rules and penalties differ around the world, in many jurisdictions a person who is aware of non-public information and trades on that basis may be subject to penalties by financial markets regulators as well as potentially facing criminal prosecution.

The definition of an insider can often be broad, and may cover not only people with direct access to confidential information but also those they share it with and who make trading decisions based on that information.

You may not think much about the emoji you use to text every day but there are compelling human stories behind them.

“My father’s music is message music, to uplift the world from its slumbering mentality,” says reggae musician Andrew Tosh, speaking from his home in Kingston, Jamaica.

His father, Peter Tosh, was one of the three founding members of the 1960s band The Wailers, along with Bob Marley and Bunny Wailer.

Peter Tosh’s story doesn’t end happily; he was murdered in a horrific attack in the 1980s, but he left both a musical and a political legacy.

And if you open your emoji keyboard and search for “levitating”, you will find a tiny picture of a man dressed in a dapper black suit, hat and shades.

That is Peter Tosh.

Niambe McIntosh, Peter Tosh’s daughter, looks after his estate. She says her father’s legacy is about justice and human rights, and she’s proud to continue his work.

“He didn’t just want people to dance; he wanted them to dance to their own (political) awakening.”

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She laughs in surprise when she learns her father is immortalised in an emoji.

“I did not know that… but I do know that picture it’s based on, of Bob, Bunny and my Dad in suits, and my Dad stands really tall.”

It was a surprise to her brother Andrew too. “Oh cool!” he says. “I actually know that picture. The young version of Peter Tosh.”

So how did a reggae legend end up as an emoji?

Web(dings) history
It’s a story which takes us from Kingston, Jamaica, to rainy Seattle in the United States; specifically, to the Microsoft headquarters in the mid-1990s.

Back then, the personal computer revolution was just beginning, and typographer Vincent Connaire was working on new fonts.

Among the scripts he designed was Webdings; a picture-based font which was intended to be used on early webpages.

Mr Connaire is a real music fan, particularly ska. One of his favourite bands is the English ska revival band The Specials. Their label, 2 Tone Records, had a logo based on an early image of The Wailers.

In the photo, Peter Tosh stands back-to-back with Bob Marley, staring out of the frame in a dark suit, bow tie and sunglasses. The 2 Tone Records designer took that image as inspiration.

And it’s that logo that was adapted by Mr Connaire two decades later for Webdings.

In his version, the suited man is jumping; or more precisely pogoing – popular among Specials fans -and it was intended to represent the “jump” from one page to another.

Years later, many Webdings symbols were encoded as emoji and released on every single smartphone and technology platform in the world.

Mr Connaire drew many of our other symbols.

“We just looked around and drew what we saw,” he says, sounding surprised by the enduring legacy his designs have had.

“The boom box was my boom box. The mountain symbol was Mount Rainier (near Seattle). It makes me proud to realise that we were a part of something special.”

Emoji memories
Emoji are approved and added to the official set by Unicode, a Silicon-Valley-based group.

For Yiying Lu and others like her, there’s something special about being included.

She’s a Shanghai-born designer who has had several proposals added to the official keyboard. The dumpling, chopsticks, fortune cookie, takeaway box and bubble or boba tea are hers, and reflect part of her identity as a Chinese woman living in the US.

She’s passionate about exploring the meanings of symbols and broadening people’s cultural horizons, and she proudly tells us about her connection to the San Francisco Chinatown community.

But the most meaningful emoji Yiying has worked on is not a reference to her culture’s food.

It’s the peacock.

A few years ago at an emoji conference, she met Irene Cho, a Korean-American marketing executive and podcast host in San Francisco. Irene worked in Hollywood and for a trendy restaurant chain, Burma Love. The pair hit it off immediately.

The Burma Love restaurant was decorated with peacock motifs and Yiying wondered why.