Has the U.S. flag icon in the header of several federal U.S. government websites been replaced by a nine-star version in 2025, or has this icon been added recently? No, that's not true: The icon in the "official website of the United States Government" banner has been like that since at least 2021, and the icon was uploaded in 2020. It has no relation to 2025 events involving the President Donald Trump administration.
Several online posts claim the icon is somehow new; for example, this video on Instagram (archived here) was published on February 3, 2025. A caption that accompanied the post read, in part:
Why is there a 9 star flag on U.S. Government websites?
The video in the post claimed the websites had been updated with the new icon. The speaker said:
Most of you are aware that the websites for the federal government have been updated. Wondering if you are aware that this little icon has been added, this little flag icon with a nine star flag?
This is what the post looked like:
(Source: Instagram screenshot taken Mon Feb 3 at 21:53:55 UTC 2025)
Other posts made connections to various flags used by the Confederacy during the U.S. Civil War, claiming it was the Confederate Battle Flag or that it resembled the "Stars and Bars" flag used by the Confederate states, implying the addition of the icon to government websites was recent and symbolical with respect to events in 2025.
However, the icon has been part of the U.S. Web Design System for government websites, of which v1 was already online in 2021 (archived here).
(Source: screenshot of v1.designsystem.digital.gov taken by Lead Stories Mon Feb 3 at 21:55:55 UTC 2025)
A copy of the state.gov website stored by the Internet Archive shows the flag icon was included in the site header in 2021:
(Source: screenshot of a copy of state.gov on the Internet Archive taken by Lead Stories on Mon Feb 3 at 21:59:21 UTC 2025)
The .png image file of the flag shown on the state.gov website, located at https://www.state.gov/wp-content/themes/state/images/us_flag_small.png, has been online since at least December 2020, according to the Internet Archive.
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Other Lead Stories fact checks involving the U.S. flag can be read here.
