Unicode Consortium, the corporation behind text emojis, has said that it won’t add more flag emojis anytime soon. The US-based not-for-profit body specified that it would not be entertaining new proposals for flag emojis, regardless of the category.

“They’re (flag emojis) more trouble than they're worth,” the corporation said and added that “the inclusion of new flags will always continue to emphasise the exclusion of others.”

Backing this argument, the consortium said, “If the Emoji Subcommittee recommends the addition of a Catalonia flag emoji, then it looks like favoritism unless all the other subdivisions of Spain are added. And if those are added, what about the subdivisions of Japan or Namibia, or the Cantons of Liechtenstein?”

The consortium can't remove a character once added. It can only update an emoji. “Countries change but Unicode additions are forever — once a character is added it can never be removed,” it said.

Flags are "by far" the least-used emoji, the corporation said. “Out of 3,600 emoji, there are over 200 flags… Despite being the largest emoji category with a strong association tied to identity, flags are by far the least used,” the statement read.

Besides, the consortium has highlighted that there are ways other than emojis to exchange images of flags such as stickers, GIFs, and image attachments.

Nevertheless, the company has clarified that flags are automatically recommended for any country that has a Unicode region code, i.e. any country recognised by the United Nations. So, if the UN recognises a new country, the emoji of that nation will be added. Until then, the number of flag emojis will remain constant.

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(Edited by : Thomas Abraham)