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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.
(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