Editing Emoji (section)

==={{anchor|1.0|2.0|3.0|4.0|5.0|11.0|12.0|12.1|13.0|13.1|14.0|15.0}}UTS #51 and modern emoji (2015–present)===
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In late 2014, a Public Review Issue was created by the [[Unicode Technical Committee]], seeking feedback on a proposed Unicode Technical Report (UTR) titled "[[Unicode Emoji]]". This was intended to improve interoperability of emoji between vendors, and define a means of supporting multiple skin tones. The feedback period closed in January 2015.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.unicode.org/review/pri286/ |title=Proposed Draft UTR #51, Unicode Emoji |work=Public Review Issues |id=PRI 286 |institution=[[Unicode Consortium]]}}</ref> Also in January 2015, the use of the [[zero-width joiner]] to indicate that a sequence of emoji could be shown as a single equivalent glyph (analogous to a [[ligature (writing)|ligature]]) as a means of implementing emoji without atomic code points, such as varied compositions of families, was discussed within the "emoji ad-hoc committee".<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2015/15029r-zwj-emoji.pdf |title=ZWJ in emoji sequences as hint for single glyph |id=[[Unicode Technical Committee|UTC]] L2/15-029R |date=2015-01-29 |first1=Peter |last1=Edberg |author2=Emoji Ad-hoc Committee}}</ref>

Unicode 8.0 (June 2015) added another 41 emoji, including articles of sports equipment such as the cricket bat, food items such as the [[taco]], new facial expressions, and symbols for places of worship, as well as five characters (crab, scorpion, lion face, bow and arrow, amphora) to improve support for pictorial rather than symbolic representations of the signs of the [[Zodiac]].{{efn|Older [[au by KDDI]] devices had used pictorial representations of all zodiac signs, displaying for instance the [[pisces (astrology)|pisces]] sign (♓️) as a fish (🐟). Later devices had changed these to symbols, for consistency with other vendors.{{refn|{{cite web |url=https://www.au.com/content/dam/au-com/static/designs/extlib/pdf/mobile/service/featurephone/communication/emoji/taiohyo_03.pdf |title=【絵文字対応表】 生き物・星座 |language=ja |publisher=[[au by KDDI]]}}}}}}<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.unicode.org/reports/tr51/tr51-3-archive.html#Emoji_Candidates |title=Annex D: Standard Additions for Unicode 8.0 |work=Unicode Technical Report #51: Unicode Emoji |version=1.0 |date=2015-06-09 |first1=Mark |last1=Davis |author-link1=Mark Davis (Unicode) |first2=Peter |last2=Edberg |institution=[[Unicode Consortium]]}}</ref>

Also in June 2015, the first approved version ("Emoji 1.0") of the Unicode Emoji report was published as Unicode Technical Report #51 (UTR #51). This introduced the mechanism of skin tone indicators, the first official recommendations about which Unicode characters were to be considered emoji, and the first official recommendations about which characters were to be displayed in an emoji font in  the absence of a [[variation selector]], and listed the zero-width joiner sequences for families and couples that were implemented by existing vendors.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.unicode.org/reports/tr51/tr51-3-archive.html |title=Unicode Technical Report #51: Unicode Emoji |version=1.0 |date=2015-06-09 |first1=Mark |last1=Davis |author-link1=Mark Davis (Unicode) |first2=Peter |last2=Edberg |institution=[[Unicode Consortium]]}}</ref> Maintenance of UTR #51, taking emoji requests, and creating proposals for emoji characters and emoji mechanisms was made the responsibility of the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee (ESC), operating as a subcommittee of the Unicode Technical Committee.<ref>{{cite web |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150625033424/http://unicode.org/emoji/index.html#Unicode_Emoji_Subcommittee |archive-date=2015-06-25 |url-status=dead |url=http://unicode.org/emoji/index.html#Unicode_Emoji_Subcommittee |title=Unicode Emoji Subcommittee |publisher=[[Unicode Consortium]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://unicode.org/emoji/techindex.html#Unicode_Emoji_Subcommittee |title=Unicode Emoji Subcommittee |publisher=[[Unicode Consortium]]}}</ref>

[[File:Emoji_Minesweeper.png|thumb|An online version of [[Minesweeper (video game)|Minesweeper]] using emoji]]

With the release of version 5.0 in May 2017 alongside Unicode 10.0, UTR #51 was redesignated a Unicode Technical Standard (UTS #51), making it an independent specification.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.unicode.org/reports/tr51/tr51-12.html |title=Unicode Technical Standard #51: Unicode Emoji |version=5.0 |date=2017-05-18 |first1=Mark |last1=Davis |author-link1=Mark Davis (Unicode) |first2=Peter |last2=Edberg |institution=[[Unicode Consortium]]}}</ref> {{as of|2017|July|post=,}} there were 2,666 Unicode emoji listed.<ref>{{cite web| url=https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-40612529| title=Emojis Honoured in World Celebration| date=July 17, 2017| publisher=BBC| access-date=November 30, 2017}}</ref> The next version of UTS #51 (published in May 2018) skipped to the version number Emoji 11.0 so as to synchronise its major version number with the corresponding version of the Unicode Standard.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.unicode.org/reports/tr51/tr51-14.html#Versioning |title=1.5.2 Versioning |work=Unicode Technical Standard #51: Unicode Emoji |version=11.0 |date=2018-05-21 |first1=Mark |last1=Davis |author-link1=Mark Davis (Unicode) |first2=Peter |last2=Edberg |institution=[[Unicode Consortium]]}}</ref>
The popularity of emoji has caused pressure from vendors and international markets to add additional designs into the Unicode standard to meet the demands of different cultures. Some characters now defined as emoji are inherited from a variety of pre-Unicode messenger systems not only used in Japan, including [[Yahoo Messenger|Yahoo]] and [[MSN Messenger]].<ref name="Emoji Additions: Animals, Compatibility, and More Popular Requests; Emoji tranche 5">{{cite web|title=Emoji Additions: Animals, Compatibility, and More Popular Requests; Emoji tranche 5|url=https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2015/15054r4-emoji-tranche5.pdf|publisher=Unicode|access-date=August 18, 2015}}</ref> Corporate demand for emoji standardization has placed pressures on the Unicode Consortium, with some members complaining that it had overtaken the group's traditional focus on standardizing characters used for minority languages and transcribing historical records.<ref name="Inside 'Emojigeddon'">{{cite web|last1=Warzel|first1=Charlie|title=Inside 'Emojigeddon': The Fight Over The Future of the Unicode Consortium|url=https://www.buzzfeed.com/charliewarzel/inside-emojigeddon-the-fight-over-the-future-of-the-unicode|website=Buzzfeed|date=April 26, 2016 |access-date=September 15, 2017}}</ref> Conversely, the Consortium thought that public desire for emoji support has put pressure on vendors to improve their Unicode support,<ref name="detract" /> which is especially true for characters outside the [[Basic Multilingual Plane]],<ref name="backendless" /> thus leading to better support for Unicode's historic and minority scripts in deployed software.<ref name="detract" />

In 2022, the Unicode Consortium decided to stop accepting proposals for flag emoji, citing low use of the category and that adding new flags "creates exclusivity at the expense of others".<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |last=Daniel |first=Jennifer |date=March 28, 2022 |title=The Past and Future of Flag Emoji |url=https://blog.unicode.org/2022/03/the-past-and-future-of-flag-emoji.html |access-date=March 13, 2024 |website=blog.unicode.org}}</ref><ref name=":3">{{Cite web |last=Tomaschek |first=Attila |date=March 29, 2022 |title=New Flag Emoji Proposals No Longer Accepted, Unicode Says |url=https://www.cnet.com/culture/internet/new-flag-emoji-proposals-no-longer-accepted-unicode-says/ |access-date=March 13, 2024 |website=CNET}}</ref> The Consortium stated that new flag emoji would still be added when their country becomes part of the [[ISO 3166-1]] standard, with no proposal needed.<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3" />