Quartz
Date: April 12, 2018
By: Josh Horwitz
In China, sometimes everything is political—even an emoji.
Emojipedia, a reference website that tracks the use and evolution of emoji, notes iOS
A no-no. (Reuters/Tyrone Siu)
users in China aren’t shown the emoji for Taiwan’s flagon Apple’s default keyboard. Usually the flag appears in iOS. But within mainland China, it’s completely absent.
The iOS emoji keyboard doesn’t show the Taiwan flag at all if the region is set to China. The character presents as a missing character (☒) when viewed on websites or in messages on a Chinese iPhone https://emojipedia.org/flag-for-taiwan/ … pic.twitter.com/2NaAiyytX4
Apple first introduced Taiwan to its emoji keyboard in 2015 as part of a beta iOS 9 update. The flags for Chad, Greenland, and Vatican City came along with it.
It’s not clear when specifically Taiwan’s flag was removed, or, indeed, if it was ever introduced on iOS for China at all. Users on forums at MacRumors, a popular site for Apple-related news, spotted the absence in early 2017. Apple did not respond to Quartz’s questions on the matter. [FULL STORY]
