title: Square symbols in parsed text from Twitter
body: <p>I apologize for such a topic title. But it is because the problem is so.</p>
  
  <p>Now I'm writing parser for Twitter and when in the text of tweet script stumbles upon these symbols ⚫️, Yii generate errors as:</p>
  
  <pre><code>SQLSTATE[HY000]: General error: 1366 Incorrect string value: '\xF0\x9F\x98\x8D\xF0\x9F...' for column 'code' at row 1.
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I wrote the following code:</p>
  
  <pre><code>if (preg_match('//si', $texts[$i])) {
   $texts[$i] = str_replace('', '', $texts[$i]); 
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But it did not help me, because all these characters have different Unicode (they are only in the form of squares)...</p>
  
  <p>I wrote the following code too:</p>
  
  <pre><code>        if (preg_match('/xF0/si', $texts[$i])) {
              unset($texts[$i]);
          }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But it did not help me too...</p>
  
  <p>These symbols is: ✂ ✃ ✄ ✆ ✇ ✈ ✉ ✌ ✍ ✎ ✏ ✐ ✑ ✒ ✓ ✔ ✕ ✖ ✗ ✘ ✙ ✚ ✛ ✜ ✝ ✞ ✟ ✠ ✡ ✢ ✣ ✤ ✥ ✦ ✧ ✩ ✪ ✫ ✬ ✭ ✮ ✯ ✰ ✱ ✲ ✳ ✴ ✵ ✶ ✷ ✸ ✹ ✺ ✻ ✼ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❀ ❁ ❂ ❃ ❄ ❅ ❆ ❇ ❈ ❉ ❊ ❋ ❍ ❏ ❐ ❑ ❒ ❖ ❘ ❙ ❚ ❛ ❜ ❝ ❞ ❡ ❢ ❣ ❤ ❥ ❦ ❧ ❶ ❷ ❸ ❹ ❺ ❻ ❼ ❽ ❾ ❿ ➀ ➁ ➂ ➃ ➄ ➅ ➆ 7 ➇ ➈ ➉ ➊ ➋ ➌ ➍ ➎ ➏ ➐ ➑ ➒ ➓ ➔ ➘ ➙ ➚ ➛ ➜ ➝ ➞ ➟ ➠ ➡ ➢ ➣ ➤ ➥ ➦ ➧ ➨ ➩ ➪ ➫ ➬ ➭ ➮ ➯ ➱ ➲ ➳ ➴ ➵ ➶ ➷ ➸ ➹ ➺ ➻ ➼ ➽ and many many others...</p>
  
  <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/3kBY6.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></p>
  
  <p><strong>How I can remove all these symbols from parsed text (without using utf8mb4)?</strong></p>