Overview
- The Bavarian Digital Ministry said its application to the Unicode Consortium was turned down after what it called a strict review in California.
- Officials reported receiving no formal explanation for the denial and did not publish any reasons.
- The ministry is distributing the lion as a WhatsApp sticker; users are told to add the contact 015208269773, send any message, then tap the auto-replied sticker and save it as a favorite.
- The lion design was selected in a 2024 public vote over a gingerbread heart and a dirndl–lederhosen combination.
- Bayerischer Rundfunk noted Unicode favors broadly recognizable, multi-context symbols and rarely encodes subnational emblems; the consortium includes companies such as Google, Apple and Meta.