We launched our first crowd-sourced Diwali emoji

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Friday, 28 October 2016

In a first of its kind interactive activity, thousands of Indians participated in a unique 48-hour Twitter Poll by @TwitterIndia and chose the colour of this year’s customised Twitter diwali ‘diya’ emoji. People chose from four options: orange, blue, green, and pink - and orange was the clear winner, with approximately 50% of votes in favour of this bright festive colour.

Starting today and for the next four-days of the festival period, millions of Indians across the world can use the orange-coloured ‘diya’ emoji in their Tweets and join the celebrations on Twitter. All they have to do is Tweet using #HappyDiwali, #HappyDeepavali, #Diwali, #Deepavali, as well as Hindi hashtags #दीपावली or #दिवाली and the ‘diya’ emoji will appear next to the hashtag.

We announced the emoji today with a special GIF.

We want Indians everywhere to engage in conversation on our platform, and light up Twitter by sharing their favourite Diwali moments, videos, photos and fun Tweets around the festival. 

People across India have begun Tweeting with the customised emoji to wish fellow Indians a happy, prosperous and safe Diwali.

A Twitter emoji is a true delight for people and it instantly brings everyone together during a key cultural moment. Last year, we launched our first-ever Diwali emoji with Bollywood superstars Salman Khan (@BeingSalmanKhan) and Sonam Kapoor (@sonamkapoor), and the platform reverberated with diverse voices in 1.8 million Tweets from people across the world.

This year, we also announced special emojis for moments of national cultural significance such as Ganeshotsav, International Day of Yoga, Independence Day and Republic Day. We also launched our first-ever emoji for a TV series for #BiggBoss10 to celebrate one of the biggest moments in entertainment of the year on Twitter.