It seems 🚸 should 👀 watch out what kind of 💩 they're sending with their 📱💻 if they don't want to get a visit from the 👮🚓. Time writes:
Emojis are quickly becoming the language of the Internet, but with that power comes a raft of new legal issues. Cases are beginning to emerge in which police charge people — often kids — for using emoji in ways that they deem threatening.
[...] a 12-year-old girl in Fairfax, Va. was charged with threatening her school and computer harassment because she posted a message on Instagram that included a bomb, knife and gun emojis and the phrase "meet me in the Library."
[...] a teen was charged with making a terrorist threat after he wrote a Facebook post that included three gun emojis pointing at the head of a police officer emoji.
Related Stories
The pistol emoji ― 🔫 ― is being phasered out, or turned into a water pistol:
Google is the latest company to ditch the pistol with a new emoji update for Android users. The switch to a bright orange and yellow water gun, rolling out now, mimics changes made by Apple, WhatsApp, Twitter, and Samsung over the last few years. That leaves Microsoft as the only major platform with the realistic handgun emoji. True, Facebook still uses it, but a spokesperson for the company confirmed to Emojipedia that it would also be replacing its gun emoji with a toy water gun. The Verge has reached out to Microsoft for comment.
[...] Ironically, Microsoft initially displayed the gun emoji as a toy, but changed it to a revolver in 2016 as part of its emoji redesign project. With Google's (and Facebook's) latest move, Microsoft's gun emoji puts it at philosophical odds with the other giant tech companies based in the US where gun violence is a major concern. As we previously noted, in 2016 Apple successfully pushed to remove the rifle icon from the standardized collection of emoji.
However, later on the day The Verge's article was published, Microsoft revealed that it is jumping on the trend as well:
We are in the process of evolving our emojis to reflect our values and the feedback we've received. Here's a preview: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DbqXVKBU0AAdXLk.jpg
Previously: Apple Changes "Pistol" Emoji From Revolver to Toy Water Gun
Apple Urged to Rethink Gun Emoji Change
Twitter Changes Revolver Emoji to Water Pistol Emoji
Related: Kids Are Facing Criminal Charges for Using Emoji
(Score: 5, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Tuesday March 01 2016, @11:09AM
Those kids are facing criminal charges for the messages they sent, not for the fact they used emoji to express them. One of the messages also contained the English sentence "meet me in the library" — does that kid thus face criminal charges for using English?
Note that I don't think this type of message should cause them to face criminal charges. But the emojis have nothing to do with it.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 01 2016, @02:22PM
I'm fairly sure you could argue that your interpretation of the emoji was different. Like you could say the poop emoji is actually chocolate pudding, etc. , the burden of proof is on the prosecution, they have to prove your intent.
In case of the girl you could say the she wanted to play cops and robbers in the library or something else that is benign. Unlike written word, these type of hieroglyphic messages are open to interpretation.
(Score: 2, Touché) by maxwell demon on Tuesday March 01 2016, @02:47PM
Really? You seem not to communicate a lot.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 01 2016, @04:04PM
Are you implying that written words are unambiguous [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 5, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Tuesday March 01 2016, @11:12AM
Emoji isn't the issue, the problem is that every stupid little outburst these days is considered a "terroristic threat". Heck, the way we are going, soon just farting too loud will get you thrown in Gitmo.
These kids weren't even around for 9/11 and they are paying for America's stupid paranoia.
It needs to stop. It needs to stop before saying that it needs to stop becomes a "terroristic threat".
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Gravis on Tuesday March 01 2016, @12:35PM
These kids weren't even around for 9/11 and they are paying for America's stupid paranoia.
to be fair, Fairfax County Public Schools has been keen on fascism for a long time. it was only a couple years ago that they ended their long standing zero tolerance policy [wtop.com] after large amounts of scrutiny hit them following the suicide of a frivolously expelled student. [washingtonpost.com] i recall an exemplary student would have been expelled for taking birth control [washingtonpost.com] if they had not been embarrassed by the media for their stupidity. [cc.com]
#NeverForgetBecauseIAmIncapable (≧∇≦)/
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday March 01 2016, @02:48PM
While the paranoia has gotten worse since Columbine and 9/11, school discipline has been poorly handled for much longer than that. Fairfax is hardly unique. Schools are sinks for the sorts of adults who are strict, rigid, narrow, unthinking disciplinarians unable to appreciate nuance, afraid of looking weak or admitting to error. They have a crime and punishment mentality. Anything not covered by the rules is forbidden. When in doubt, the answer is "no".
I was once accused of cheating, of copying the homework of another student. Both of us were sent to the office for discipline. The first thing this official did was leap right past the bothersome formalities of informing us of what exactly we had done wrong and confirm the accusation, to get to the fun part of chewing us out and warning us that cheating was a despicable act that warranted severe consequences, detention at the least, maybe suspension, and perhaps even expulsion. But when we had the opportunity to compare our homework, it became clear that we had not cheated, I had only put down a quick, bad non-answer answer to a homework question, and the other student had had the same thought and put down the same answer. The rest of our answers were totally different. Instead of dropping the matter, the school disciplinarian shifted gears. We were admonished for doing a bad job on our homework. There was not the slightest hint of "oops" or "never mind". Then we were sent back to class and left to wonder if there would be further repercussions. Why leave us hanging like that?
That sort of clumsy, mean handling is all too typical. They will railroad students to save face, and they will see face being lost where there is no call for seeing that. And so some nothing issue can so easily get blown way out of proportion, and when the mistake is discovered, embarrassed officialdom sometimes chooses to up the ante and end up looking even more ridiculously overheated. They will punish students for the crime of embarrassing them, if they can get away with it. Parents are often the last line of defense a student has, though sometimes students will band together to protest unfair treatment and force the administration to reconsider.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday March 01 2016, @03:19PM
Unfortunately many of those administrators are practically immune to any outside pressure, thanks to unionization. The parents have to be on the verge of burning the school down to get rid of the people you're describing before anything happens at all, and then it's usually a limp slap on the wrist.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by Eristone on Tuesday March 01 2016, @07:56PM
*Administrators* aren't members of unions. They are susceptible to pressure from parents and school boards and will usually bend to either. Teachers, on the other hand, are members of a union and depending on the union they may be very protective, but that is partly because the way some parents act.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday March 01 2016, @08:40PM
YMMV. In New York City administrators can get tenure, and it becomes near impossible to get rid of them. I say this because I am on the school board in our district and we're pressuring the hell out of the Superintendent to get rid of an abysmal principal at one of the schools, and she throws her hands up in the air and says there's nothing she can do because the principal has tenure. Nice for that principal, to be so abjectly worthless and still get to keep her job, but rather sucks for the hundreds of families who can't flee the place fast enough.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Eristone on Tuesday March 01 2016, @08:58PM
What - you haven't found the kiddie p**n folder on the Principal's computer yet? I'm certain if you work with the IT staff to do the proper scans and research, if it exists they will unearth it. Should that be the case, tenure won't protect them. In the meantime, have your Superintendent start a new program that needs a skilled hand to manage and convince the staff member in question to take it up. Madogiwazoku is the term... :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 01 2016, @03:53PM
(≧∇≦)/
That's 10 years jail for you, Gravis!!
(Score: 2) by DutchUncle on Tuesday March 01 2016, @08:01PM
I agree completely that authoritarians often wield their authority stupidly, BUT: I remembered the story about the girl being expelled, so I went and re-read the article about her taking her birth control pill DURING SCHOOL HOURS when there is a "NO DRUGS" policy at the school. It wasn't about WHAT she was taking, it was about having a pill at school. As a prescription-taking old person, I take my daily pills in the morning and my twice-a-day additions in the evening so my pill bottles stay at home. If the girl had needed 3x pills midday, then a doctor's note to the school nurse should do the job AND THE PILLS SHOULD BE UNLABELED (rather, the exact medication unlabeled, of course they need to be properly labeled for the person and usage and such). YES, zero tolerance is zero thought and zero justice; but on the other hand, YES, she directly violated a clear and simple rule, and NEEDLESSLY at that. Don't poke the bear.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday March 02 2016, @03:38AM
The problem is, the bear may eventually follow you home and start dictating what you can do there as well.
After all, there have already been cases where schools attempted to control what students did with social media, in their own time at home.
When I was a kid, schools were not our nannies; the nurse, if any, was there to treat actual emergencies. If you needed a cough drop in class, or an aspirin, or a prescription, you took it as required and it was no one else's business. Now, kids are denied access to their asthma inhalers, let alone anything more nefarious, because zero tolerance rules made everyone's brains fall out.
/rant
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Hyperturtle on Tuesday March 01 2016, @02:47PM
What?
Think of the children!
Oh, wait
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 01 2016, @05:34PM
This is called fascism, if you're not too spineless to be honest about it...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 01 2016, @06:02PM
Hi! I hear you want to stop "terroristic threats". My friends and I also feel strongly about "terroristic threats" and would like to help you stop them. Just let us know [fbi.gov] if you need to illegally buy any explosives or anything, we'll be glad to help you!
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 01 2016, @12:12PM
Does the superfluous "watch" after the eye bother anyone else?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Tuesday March 01 2016, @12:28PM
Something like this, maybe:
I suppose I should get off the crack pipe. Sigh.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 01 2016, @01:58PM
As soon as you can yell "Fire!" in the theatre, we'll talk again...
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 01 2016, @02:46PM
From Techdirt article [techdirt.com] on the subject (emphasis mine):
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Tuesday March 01 2016, @06:00PM
Thank you.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Tuesday March 01 2016, @09:05PM
The case had nothing to do with fires or theaters.
Doesn't matter. Can you yell "fire!" in a crowded theatre with impugnity, or not?
The case is, to this day...
The case was later [...] overturned...
Why are you still going about "the case" when we've already established that it has nothing to do with fires or theatres?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 01 2016, @10:06PM
Same AC here.
Doesn't matter. Can you yell "fire!" in a crowded theatre with impugnity, or not?
I don't know. As far as I know, it hasn't been tested in court. I don't care enough to search for it, since I don't live in the US and it doesn't directly impact me.
Why are you still going about "the case" when we've already established that it has nothing to do with fires or theatres?
I'm not the one going on about the case; that's a block quote, verbatim from the original article.
That aside, the later developments around the case reflect on the "yelling fire" test, confirming it as useless, or worse, actively harmful to the ideals of free speech.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Tuesday March 01 2016, @03:47PM
As soon as you can yell "Fire!" in the theatre, we'll talk again...
And as soon as you can recognize the difference between emojis and creating a life-threatening situation, you might stop getting face palmed all the time. Moron.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday March 01 2016, @06:42PM
If the Bombs Guns and Knives in the Library example was credible, could that not create the exact same panic as the Fire in a Theater example?
(Score: 3, Touché) by NotSanguine on Wednesday March 02 2016, @03:38AM
If the Bombs Guns and Knives in the Library example was credible, could that not create the exact same panic as the Fire in a Theater example?
And was it credible? AFAICT, no one even investigated. They just charged right up (guns drawn, no doubt) and took said terrorist 12-year old girl into custody.
Regardless of the credibility of the "threat" (which, the longer I think about it, the less credible it seems), that speech (as AC correctly pointed out [soylentnews.org]) is protected speech under the first amendment. The precedent, Brandenberg v. Ohio [wikipedia.org] clearly defines this:
This situation (emojis are really irrelevant here) is clearly unconstitutional. What is more, it sets a really vicious example for our kids: "If you open your mouth, you risk being labeled a terrorist and/or going to PMITA prison."
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by DutchUncle on Tuesday March 01 2016, @07:50PM
>>>> as soon as you can recognize the difference between emojis and creating a life-threatening situation....
Is there a difference between emojis and text in a message? Alfred Bester, "The Demolished Man", 1953, used punctuation as normal text; his characters had names like Sam @kins, Duffy Wyg&, and 1/4main (with the 1/4 being a single-character-space 1-over-4). Communication through images and icons is nothing new. It's not about emojis; If the students had sent purely text messages saying "bomb, knife, gun, meet me in the library", or "Three guns for the cop", the authorities would have freaked just as much.
Should they have freaked? Probably not. But can they afford to ignore messages about bringing weapons to school, after numerous occasions in which students have brought weapons to school and used them? Also probably not, because a false-negative-reaction in this case could be not just career-ending but life-ending.
Just as important, should the students know enough not to deliberately provoke the authorities? Any REAL secret plan would typically include concepts like "stealth" and "secrecy", and a simple "See you in the library later" might have very different meaning from "Meet you in the library" or the more ominous "See you in the library as planned". Yes, when I was a teenager, one could say "I'd like to kill the guy who scratched my car!" without it sounding like an organized crime death threat, and yes, 99.99% of such talk is hyperbole. But it is well established that hyperbole about violence gets an equally hyperbolic reaction today.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Wednesday March 02 2016, @03:25AM
Is there a difference between emojis and text in a message? Alfred Bester, "The Demolished Man", 1953, used punctuation as normal text; his characters had names like Sam @kins, Duffy Wyg&, and 1/4main (with the 1/4 being a single-character-space 1-over-4). Communication through images and icons is nothing new. It's not about emojis; If the students had sent purely text messages saying "bomb, knife, gun, meet me in the library", or "Three guns for the cop", the authorities would have freaked just as much.
A good novel. I've read it several times over the years. Irrelevant to the situation, but an interesting story.
You touched my woman's feet! And now you're gonna pay motherfucker! Meet me under the Gateway Arch at 14:30 on March 17th, so I can give you what you so obviously deserve. 🔫 🔪 💣
That's free speech. you can rationalize your inane "think of the children" or "safety!" tropes all you want. It's still speech and is still protected under the First Amendment.
Conceivably, if you take that as a serious threat, you could report it to the police. It would then be up to them to either investigate (e.g., come talk to me) or ignore it as not a credible threat.
Kids say stupid things all the time. Criminally penalizing a 12 year-old child for saying stuff with emojis like these 🔫 🔪 💣 without any context or understanding of the situation is the height of ignorance, paranoia and is quite authoritarian. It defies our understanding of the First Amendment (cf. Brandenberg v. Ohio [wikipedia.org]) and creates a toxic environment for the children you are so keen on "thinking of."
In conclusion, fuck you. I'll kick your ass back into last week!
Should the SWAT team be beating down my door for this, DutchUncle? Please.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Wednesday March 02 2016, @07:12PM
You of course can yell "Fire" in a crowded theater. Actors do it all the time. Sometimes, there really is a fire. Now, there's a law against falsely pulling a fire alarm, but that's mostly because you shouldn't summon firefighters randomly.
A better analog is that you cannot give someone advice and encouragement to commit a crime. But you usually need to prove that
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Tuesday March 01 2016, @12:29PM
It seems 🚸 should
Firefox doesn't show me that one. What is it?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 01 2016, @12:47PM
Looks like an emoji for "people" , looks like a parent holding hands with his child or something like that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 01 2016, @02:27PM
(Score: 4, Informative) by maxwell demon on Tuesday March 01 2016, @02:57PM
So the first sentence of the summary actually reads:
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2, Funny) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday March 01 2016, @04:04PM
Oh I thought the boxes were a joke about slashcode's unicode support.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday March 01 2016, @06:38PM
I can't see any of them in Chrome....
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 08 2016, @08:56PM
You need to install the font that includes the emojis. I see them fine in Iceweasel on Linux. IIRC on Debian the package you need to install is ttf-ancient-fonts.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Tuesday March 08 2016, @11:27PM
You need to install the font that includes the emojis.
I need to do a number of things. This is not one of them.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 4, Touché) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday March 01 2016, @12:45PM
weren't we just told yesterday [soylentnews.org] that the dangerous Wild West internet of the late nineties and early aughts had been tamed and domesticated by the benign influence of Saint Zuckerberg? How can these teenage terrorists be spreading their pixels of doom in the divine walled Eden that is Facebook?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 01 2016, @02:31PM
Ah, but if it weren't for the benevolence and vigilance of the Saint Zuckerberg, these terrorist teens wouldn't be arrested and would still be out there, terrorizing the innocent people on the internet with their terrorist emojis. Thanks to the Saint Zuckerberg (praised be his name) and the mighty forces of law enforcement, they are now safely locked away. Of course, they'll probably never be able to get a normal job with terrorist charges on their record, which means they'll have to turn to a life of crime, which means they need to be locked away. Thus the Circle of Reasoning is complete.
(Score: 2) by rob_on_earth on Tuesday March 01 2016, @01:11PM
I am sure you could just find an Asterix/Tintin/Beano or similar pictogram based swear and quote it.
But rather annoyingly I cannot find any classic images with the bomb, loads with skull and crossbones, daggers and nooses.
(Score: 4, Informative) by MrNemesis on Tuesday March 01 2016, @03:49PM
Bilingual swearing (Roman > Germanic) courtesy of Asterix [tvtropes.org]
Handy expletive pictorial alphabet [blogspot.com]
"To paraphrase Nietzsche, I have looked into the abyss and been sick in it."
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 01 2016, @01:23PM
(_)_):::::::D (_.(_) meet me in fairfax
(Score: 4, Interesting) by darkfeline on Tuesday March 01 2016, @03:49PM
>three gun emojis pointing at the head of a police officer emoji
Uh, I don't think the gun emoji specifies a direction. The police office may have seen it with the gun pointing right, but maybe for the teen it was pointing left?
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday March 01 2016, @04:13PM
Good point. Is the following an alien monster killing a guardsman, or a guardsman killing an alien monster? 👾🔫💂
(Here, the gun points to the monster)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 01 2016, @04:42PM
Don't worry, if you want to specify direction, Unicode's got you covered [unicode.org] (because they have nothing better to do).
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday March 01 2016, @05:41PM
Heck, if they do so muchg customization for emojis, I want the same level of detail also for ordinary letters! I can specify an uppercase A, but I cannot specify a red uppercase A in 12 pt Times New Roman bold italics. So I suggest they add the following character modifiers:
COMBINING LETTER STYLE NORMAL
COMBINING LETTER STYLE ITALICS
COMBINING LETTER STYLE BOLD
COMBINING LETTER STYLE SMALLCAPS
COMBINING LETTER STYLE UNDERLINE
COMBINING LETTER STYLE STRIKETHROUGH
COMBINING LETTER SPACING FIXED
COMBINING LETTER SPACING PROPORTIONAL
COMBINING LETTER FONT TIMES NEW ROMAN
COMBINING LETTER FONT ARIAL
COMBINING LETTER FONT COMIC SANS
…
COMBINING LETTER SIZE 6 POINT
COMBINING LETTER SIZE 7 POINT
COMBINING LETTER SIZE 8 POINT
COMBINING LETTER SIZE 9 POINT
COMBINING LETTER SIZE 10 POINT
COMBINING LETTER SIZE 11 POINT
…
COMBINING LETTER COLOUR RED CHANNEL 0
COMBINING LETTER COLOUR RED CHANNEL 1
…
COMBINING LETTER COLOUR RED CHANNEL 255
COMBINING LETTER COLOUR GREEN CHANNEL 0
…
COMBINING LETTER COLOUR GREEN CHANNEL 255
COMBINING LETTER COLOUR BLUE CHANNEL 0
…
COMBINING LETTER COLOUR BLUE CHANNEL 255
COMBINING LETTER COLOUR ALPHA CHANNEL 0
…
COMBINING LETTER COLOUR ALPHA CHANNEL 255
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 01 2016, @06:45PM
COMBINING LETTER COLOUR RED CHANNEL 0
COMBINING LETTER COLOUR RED CHANNEL 1
…
COMBINING LETTER COLOUR RED CHANNEL 255
COMBINING LETTER COLOUR GREEN CHANNEL 0
…
COMBINING LETTER COLOUR GREEN CHANNEL 255
COMBINING LETTER COLOUR BLUE CHANNEL 0
…
COMBINING LETTER COLOUR BLUE CHANNEL 255
COMBINING LETTER COLOUR ALPHA CHANNEL 0
…
COMBINING LETTER COLOUR ALPHA CHANNEL 255
I'm thought I saw something like this proposed for emoji. I looked through the document register and mailing list but couldn't find it. Maybe I was thinking of the Irish/German flag emoji proposals.(pg 6, [dkuug.dk] pg 53) [dkuug.dk]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 01 2016, @06:00PM
come on boy, we're gonna have a little fun. [youtube.com]
Although somehow I doubt they were Hoyt Axton fans. Maybe they were playing Clue?
(Score: 1) by WillAdams on Tuesday March 01 2016, @06:38PM
Here:
Dead link: http://pennandteller.com/sincity/penn-n-teller/pcc/wingding.html [pennandteller.com]
Discussion of it: http://www.snopes.com/rumors/wingdings.asp [snopes.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by CaTfiSh on Tuesday March 01 2016, @06:49PM
This is the natural outcome of "zero tolerance" laws enacted in the 80s. The moment laws were recognized that could be adjudicated apart from consideration of circumstance, the downgrade of justice began.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 02 2016, @07:31AM
Women wanted it: Statutory rape (so men couldn't get girls)
America is a woman's country.
>In the United States, as late as the 1880s most States set the minimum age at 10-12, (in Delaware it was 7 in 1895).[8] Inspired by the "Maiden Tribute" female reformers in the US initiated their own campaign[9] which petitioned legislators to raise the legal minimum age to at least 16, with the ultimate goal to raise the age to 18. The campaign was successful, with almost all states raising the minimum age to 16-18 years by 1920.
>Also: see: Deuteronomy chapter 22 verses 28-29, hebrew allows men to rape girl children and keep them: thus man + girl is obviously fine. Feminists are commanded to be killed as anyone enticing others to follow another ruler/judge/god is to be killed as-per Deuteronomy. It is wonderful when this happens from time to time: celebrate)