Folks went berserk when they caught wind of an anti-LGBTQ emoji, which depicted a rainbow flag with a crossed-out circle over the image, but it seems to be a glitch in the system.
It all started on Tuesday (February 19) when Twitter user @miog shared the emoji of the flag without any explanation, leading folks to a furry of confusion. However, it all seems to be a facade, specifically when using unicode character. Apparently, it's possible to put a crossed-out sign through any emoji on mobile. As Time reported, the reason you can see it, as well as accents in a French city name, or Japanese kanji on an online storefront, is the Unicode Standard, created by the Unicode Consortium. Unicodes basically provide a way to represent text in multiple languages, symbols, and emoji by assigning each character a special unique number. For the officially designated “international prohibition sign" aka the cross-out circle, that identification number (U+20E0) is categorized in Unicode as a combi character, which layers atop the emoji.
"The way the emoji appears is due to Unicode presentation on iOS, and on its own is not a violation of our rules," a Twitter spokesperson said. "However, if a user is targeted with this kind of emoji, and we have context that the intention is to shame, degrade, or harass based on membership (or perceived membership) in a protected category, we will action under our Hateful Conduct policies."
Photo: Getty Images