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Twitter tries to spice up 2015 UK General Election with emoji-style ‘hashflags’

Twitter has launched a new feature to celebrate the impending 2015 UK General Election.

The micro-blogging site this morning tweeted that updates related to the polls will automatically have a small icon – a ‘hashflag’ – added to the end of them.

However, the mini images won’t appear on all things election-related. Twitter says that only updates including #conservative, #labour, #libdems, #ukip, #greens, #snp, #plaid15, #dup, #sdlp and #respectparty will receive the hashflag treatment.

You’ll have to be fairly precise though, since posting variations of the supported hashtags (#libdem instead of #libdems or #conservatives instead of #conservative) won’t summon the hashflag.

As things go, our current App of the Week happens to also be General Election-related. Follow the link above to read about ElectUK, as well as a host of other excellent Android apps.

Related: iOS 8.3 arrives with multi-cultural emoji

Hashflags were rolled out by Twitter for the World Cup last summer, and popped up again during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The social network has created another tool to help users deal with the general election, but it’s a little less light-hearted. You can find the ‘Twitter for Government’ guide here.

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