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Kids Are Facing Criminal Charges for Using Emoji

posted by martyb on Tuesday March 01 2016, @10:57AM   Printer-friendly
from the it's-just-your-emoji-nation dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

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.

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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 01 2016, @02:22PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 01 2016, @02:22PM (#312120)

    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.

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  • (Score: 2, Touché) by maxwell demon on Tuesday March 01 2016, @02:47PM

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Tuesday March 01 2016, @02:47PM (#312136) Journal

    Unlike written word

    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

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 01 2016, @04:04PM (#312196)

    Unlike written word, these type of hieroglyphic messages are open to interpretation.

    Are you implying that written words are unambiguous [wikipedia.org].