This character is a Other Symbol and is commonly used, that is, in no specific script.
The glyph is not a composition. Its East Asian Width is wide. In bidirectional text it acts as Other Neutral. When changing direction it is not mirrored. U+1F649 offers a line break opportunity at its position, except in some numeric contexts.
The CLDR project calls this character βhear-no-evil monkeyβ for use in screen reading software. It assigns these additional labels, e.g. for search in emoji pickers: animal, ears, evil, face, forbidden, gesture, hear, listen, monkey, no, not, prohibited, secret, shh, tmi.
This character is designated as an emoji. It will be rendered as colorful emoji on conforming platforms. To reduce it to a monochrome character, you can combine it with Variation Selector-15: ποΈ See the Emojipedia for more details on this characterβs emoji properties.
The Wikipedia has the following information about this codepoint:
The three wise monkeys are a Japanese pictorial maxim, embodying the proverbial principle "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil". The three monkeys are
Mizaru (θ¦γγ), "does not see", covering his eyes
Kikazaru (θγγγ), "does not hear", covering his ears
Iwazaru (θ¨γγγ), "does not speak", covering his mouth.
Lafcadio Hearn refers to them as the three mystic apes.
There are at least two divergent interpretations of the maxim: in Buddhist tradition, it is about avoiding evil thoughts and deeds. In the West, however, it is often interpreted as dealing with impropriety by turning a blind eye.
Outside Japan the monkeys' names are sometimes given as Mizaru, Mikazaru and Mazaru, as the last two names were corrupted from the Japanese originals. The monkeys are Japanese macaques, a common species in Japan.