Unicode Delegated Political Flag Rendering Decisions to Phone Manufacturers
Fred Benenson · a16z Podcast | Not all Network Effects Are Created Equal · Jan 2, 2019 · at 39:06
Fred Benenson explains how Unicode's flag system works technically to avoid making geopolitical determinations about state legitimacy.
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“What they did was they built this kind of like Meta country system so that you would actually be pairing these country letter emojis together. So CNN would go together, and then it would be up to your phone to decide if you showed the Chinese flag. They pushed that decision-making, that, like, political decision-making of which flags to support off to the handset manufacturers.”
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