Russia wants to ban gay emojis. Seriously

The Russian government is going investigate emojis depicting gay kissing. Really.

Roskomnadzor, the government organisation responsible for policing Russian media, wrote a letter to the Young Guard of United Russia, requesting the youth group’s members investigate emojis and their use on social media.

Deputy head of Roskomnadzor, Maxim Ksenzov Mikhael Marchenko, said in the statement that gay emojis are part of

the spread on social media of untraditional sexual relations among minors.

He also said the emojis cause

harm to their health and development.

Emojis depicting gay and lesbian couples kissing are thought to have caused particular concern and are thought to violate the nation’s ban on the “promotion of non-traditional sexual relations" that sparked international outcry.

Roskomnadzor has been an entity in Russian public policy for three years as a repressive speech censor.

In 2012, it was ordered to create a blacklist of websites detrimental to Russian interests. Roskomnadzor blocked over 180 sites.

The organisation has also banned certain memes from use, defining it as illegal to post memes of real people that depict them in any way that does not reflect their “personality".

Oh well.

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