I can't believe that second article doesn't include images of the flags it is talking about. Not even the links provided for each country show the flag...
Well it uses their emoji so you can see them. At least on my phone using brave. Iirc firefox doesn't reliably render them but I'm not sure
No emoji in Firefox or Chrome here. Firefox does render emoji reliably, no need for the FUD. On Windows, Firefox even renders flags, which the OS does not due to Microsoft's previous issues with countries complaining about maps with disputed borders.
Emojis are not a good solution here anyway (or anywhere where you care about the glyph appearance rather than the meaning) because their presentation isn't fixed.