Say goodbye to the humble aubergine emoji on Instagram as the photo social network has now apparently blocked it because some say it symbolises the penis.
Those who have recently updated the software will have noticed that you can no longer search for posts using the aubergine emoji, because, according to Instagram, it violated community guidelines.
However the just as suggestive banana and peach are unaffected. When TheGayUK tried to search Instagram using the icon, “No tags found” was the result. However, you can still search for people using the naughty symbol.
Writing in a blog post, Instagram said:
“Over the past few years, emoji have become part of a universal visual language,” “And just as, we share photos and videos, we use emoji to communicate emotions and feelings in ways that anyone can understand, regardless of language or background”. “With emoji hashtags, you can discover even more by adding them to your own photos and videos, searching them on the Explore page and tapping on them when you see them in captions,”
The app also bans the words penis, cock and dick