python remove emoji in string

remove_emoji.py

def remove_emoji(data):
    """
    去除表情
    :param data:
    :return:
    """
    if not data:
        return data
    if not isinstance(data, basestring):
        return data
    try:
    # UCS-4
        patt = re.compile(u'([\U00002600-\U000027BF])|([\U0001f300-\U0001f64F])|([\U0001f680-\U0001f6FF])')
    except re.error:
    # UCS-2
        patt = re.compile(u'([\u2600-\u27BF])|([\uD83C][\uDF00-\uDFFF])|([\uD83D][\uDC00-\uDE4F])|([\uD83D][\uDE80-\uDEFF])')
    return patt.sub('', data)

Is this still not working for all emojis? I’d love to incorporate it into my project and it seems like a compact solution.

Also what’s basestring?