'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. 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. Unicodes basically provide a way to represent text in multiple languages, symbols, and emoji by assigning each character a special unique number. 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. Apparently, it's possible to put a crossed-out sign through any emoji on mobile. However, it all seems to be a facade, specifically when using unicode character. It all started on Tuesday (February 19) when Twitter user shared the emoji of the flag without any explanation, leading folks to a furry of confusion. 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.
