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[Celerity]

2. Fact Check: No, Trump admin didn't add 9-star US flag to government websites in 2025

https://www.yahoo.com/news/fact-check-no-trump-admin-182300513.html



A rumor circulating online in early February 2025 claimed U.S. President Donald Trump's administration replaced the standard 50-star U.S. flag with a nine-star flag on government websites. This matter specifically concerned the very top portion of some .gov websites displaying a small, icon-sized American flag with the words, "An official website of the United States government."

For example, one Snopes reader's email read, "Has the American flag on usa.gov website been changed to have 9 stars instead of 50?" Another reader inquired if the flag appeared after Trump took office in January 2025.

Numerous users shared this rumor on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, TikTok and X. Several of the users spreading the claim said the flag originated with the Confederacy and the U.S. Civil War, referencing it as the Confederate First National Flag, United Confederate Veterans Flag or Confederate Veterans Flag, among other names. According to some users, the nine stars represented the first nine states to secede from the Union in the early 1860s.

https://www.tiktok.com/@olivia67rae/video/7467169195600448810

However, the rumor the second Trump administration replaced the present-day, 50-star flag with a nine-star flag was false. While the small flag icon possibly first appeared during Trump's first term in 2017, the image remained visible throughout the entirety of former President Joe Biden's time in office. The icon-sized flag image has remained part of the U.S. Web Design System's government website resource on digital.gov (upper left corner) for at least several years, and simply existed as part of a banner to alert users to websites' official government affiliation.

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