Why You Can't Use These Emojis In Your Twitter Name
Twitter allows the ✳️ Eight-Spoked Asterisk emoji to be inserted into Twitter names and bios but not 🔷 Large Blue Diamond. Why? To prevent accounts from attempting to look verified when they are not.
The Twitter verified checkmark is a white checkmark/tick inside a ruffled blue circle. No emoji looks exactly like this, but that doesn't mean some aren't close.
Twitter has enough issues with spam and bot accounts in general–something they have been working to clamp down on in 2018–but the last thing it needs is for regular accounts to be mistaken as verified accounts because of an emoji.
Last week iOS 12.1 came out and immediately some people were keen to add the 🧿 Nazar Amulet to their Twitter names. Sadly for those people, this emoji has now been added to the list of emojis banned from use in Twitter names.
Attempting to include any emoji too similar to the verified checkmark in a Twitter name or bio will result in this error message:
'Account update failed: Name can't include "emoji"'
Here are the list of emojis considered too similar to the verified checkmark to be permitted in Twitter names or bios:
- ✔️ Heavy Check Mark
- ☑️ Ballot Box With Check
- ✅ White Heavy Check Mark
- 🔹 Small Blue Diamond
- 🔷 Large Blue Diamond
- 🔵 Blue Circle
- 🔘 Radio Button
- 🧿 Nazar Amulet
- 💠 Diamond With a Dot
- ♾️ Infinity
- 🌀 Cyclone
These are mostly either circular, blue, or contain a checkmark. In the case of the ♾️ Infinity emoji, this currently appears in a blue circle on some platforms, including Samsung and Twitter's own Twemoji set.
The list doesn't end there. Four lock-related emojis are banned too. Twitter uses a lock icon to indicate private accounts on the platform. To avoid confusion with these, the following emojis also aren't allowed in names or bios:
These same lock emojis are also hidden from webpage titles in Safari, to avoid websites faking having an SSL certificate.
If you've seen Twitter accounts that do include any of the above-listed emojis (ahem) the key here is that if you add a restricted emoji prior to it making the list of verified-lookalikes, it won't be removed. You get to keep it until changing Twitter names.
The above lists are correct as of the time of writing, but as with anything online, could be updated at any time. So perhaps add that 💎 Gem Stone emoji while you still can 😉