[throwawaycities]

This is the reason I initially got on the waitlist to join Bluesky.

11 years ago I made a social media aggregator where users had to have a verified domain to join - think using your domain as username and using you domain to authenticate your social media profiles. My show HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6529523

This probably sounds silly but in the end I didn’t actually use Bluesky because they don’t support emoji domains.

[extraduder_ire]

Did you try using the emoji domain as-is, or did you use the punycode version? e.g. <US flag>.com vs xn--w77hd.com

Because I can imagine them not implementing support to limit lookalike codepoints being used in handles, or they just hadn't gotten around to supporting punycode in their domain verifier.

[throwawaycities]

I attempted both the emoji character and punycode.

Emojis are tricky, most domain registrars can’t get them right, most browsers can’t get at least some right (usually the ones with ZWJ characters.

So by no means a knock on Bluesky, but I was waiting for an invite code for so long just to be able to use an emoji as my identity.

Not directed at you, but not sure why my initial comment was downvoted, it’s pretty damn hard for new social media platforms to get users from other platforms - and as domain identity/usernames is a main competitive feature and I was super excited then didn’t end up using it, sharing my experience might be worth more than downvoting

[Joker_vD]

Well, the last time I checked (it was 2 years ago so maybe something has changed since), all of the emojis were explicitly on the list of codepoints that are prohibited from appearing in IDNs. So all those domain registrars that accept emojis in the domain names just simply didn't bother to read the standards they were supposed to implement.

[throwawaycities]

Yes I believe that is correct emojis are not IDNs; however, ICANN authorizes ccTLDs support emojis separately I think it’s just considered punycode.

Only about a dozen ccTLDs have authorized support for them and allow them to be registered.

Browsers support them, it’s just certain emojis a nearly universally problematic and don’t resolve. Otherwise long as the ccTLD supports DNSSEC the emoji domain names support DNSSEC just the same include those that don’t resolve it browsers.

ICANN rules allow ccTLDs to create emoji/punycode domains - domain registrars and TLD owners are not going rouge and allowing registration of domains in violation of ICANN rules or policies.

Not sure if you know Ben he’s launched a lot of small projects here on HN a few hitting front page and going viral in the HN/product hunt communities, but one of them was Mailoji - basically a cool story of him registering hundreds of single emoji domains and creating email (forwarding) service with them. As one might imagine it didn’t just go viral on HN/product hunt but on TikTok with the kids.

As far as Bluesky they definitely could support emoji domains, I understand the argument that it takes extra effort to do that and they may not see it as worth the time and effort - but I’d be more open minded about the opportunity and appeal to younger users.

[Joker_vD]

> ICANN rules allow ccTLDs to create emoji/punycode domains

Well, they can't prohibit it, strictly speaking, they don't have such authority, but I remember them strongly discouraging it and advicing against delegation of such domains. Did something change their stance? I'd like to read that.

And the rules of IDNA2008 certainly did not change, they still prohibit emoji in domain names.