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Emoji Are Showing Up in Court Cases Exponentially, and Courts Aren't Prepared (theverge.com)

Posted by msmash on from the times,-they-are-changin' dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Bay Area prosecutors were trying to prove that a man arrested during a prostitution sting was guilty of pimping charges, and among the evidence was a series of Instagram DMs (direct messages) he'd allegedly sent to a woman. One read: "Teamwork make the dream work" with high heels and money bag emoji placed at the end. Prosecutors said the message implied a working relationship between the two of them. The defendant said it could mean he was trying to strike up a romantic relationship. Who was right?

Emoji are showing up as evidence in court more frequently with each passing year. Between 2004 and 2019, there was an exponential rise in emoji and emoticon references in US court opinions, with over 30 percent of all cases appearing in 2018, according to Santa Clara University law professor Eric Goldman, who has been tracking all of the references to "emoji" and "emoticon" that show up in US court opinions. So far, the emoji and emoticons have rarely been important enough to sway the direction of a case, but as they become more common, the ambiguity in how emoji are displayed and what we interpret emoji to mean could become a larger issue for courts to contend with.

118 comments

  1. Re:Indochimp Miss Mash by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Stop talking, start Kendalling

  2. Plural Form by Kunedog · · Score: 2

    Whoa, whoa, stop right there. Is "emoji" also the plural of "emoji"?

    1. Re:Plural Form by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who cares? It's a Japanese word.

    2. Re:Plural Form by ELCouz · · Score: 1

      Emojis also accepted as plurial form.

    3. Re: Plural Form by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Keep pushing that helium

    4. Re:Plural Form by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      WTF is "plurial?"

    5. Re:Plural Form by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are the worst kind of grammar Nazi scum.

    6. Re:Plural Form by pezezin · · Score: 1

      It's a Japanese word, and Japanese doesn't have grammatical number, so... maybe.

    7. Re:Plural Form by mrbester · · Score: 2

      It's the Spinal Tap version of more plural, specifically 1 pluraller (in lowercase Roman numerals).

      --
      "Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
    8. Re:Plural Form by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not quite.
      It's a Japanese loan word and the Japanese language doesn't have plural forms for words.

      So, arguing over the proper plural when using it in an english sentence is a lot like arguing over which fork is the proper one to use to remove the bread from a jammed toaster.

    9. Re:Plural Form by Highdude702 · · Score: 1

      There's 2 answers to that. The bread fork or the jam fork. They both work!

    10. Re:Plural Form by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The English translation is "Jism Splash" ...

  3. Re: Indochimp Miss Mash by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Teamwork make the dream work. Did he really say that? What a dork

  4. How do courts deal with other ambiguous speech? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Do that with emojis too.

    "The defendant looked at her like the surprised Pikachu meme." "Lawyers to the bench, now!"

    1. Re:How do courts deal with other ambiguous speech? by jellomizer · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I think the problem is that emojis are even more ambiguous because the images may be very context sensitive. The High Heals and Dollar signs. Is that asking for money for shoes, asking someone to dress up and bring some extra cash, or a sign for prostitution.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    2. Re:How do courts deal with other ambiguous speech? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The High Heals and Dollar signs. Is that asking for money for shoes, asking someone to dress up and bring some extra cash, or a sign for prostitution.

      Isn't English also context sensitive? "Give me all you got!" between two friends is probably just one asking the other for gossip. "Give me all you got!" between a random pedestrian and a person with a gun in their hands is probably a mugging.

    3. Re:How do courts deal with other ambiguous speech? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I will believe that in the latter case, they are also asking for gossip, and tell them all the news from around the office. I don't see how this could go poorly.

    4. Re:How do courts deal with other ambiguous speech? by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      An emoji is nothing more than an extension of a poorly written paragraph. Its ambiguity stems from you reading it in isolation.

      In this case it's ambiguity also stems from the preceding sentence: "Teamwork make the dream work" which contains precisely zero information to make any judgement on the topic at hand. The emoji isn't the problem here.

  5. could it be by renegade600 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    could it be?? Is the world slowly returning to hieroglyphs??

    1. Re:could it be by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      No. For most of history people have been largely illiterate peasants. We're returning to the historical norm.
      20th century was a weird outlier in practically every way.

    2. Re:could it be by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You see this happening whenever there are multiple languages in use in the same place. US highway signs used to say MERGING TRAFFIC. Now they use a graphic which is essentially a kanji, eliminating the need to add Spanish to all the signs.

    3. Re:could it be by sysrammer · · Score: 1

      could it be?? Is the world slowly returning to hieroglyphs??

      Ha! My first thought.

      --
      His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
    4. Re:could it be by sysrammer · · Score: 1

      When I was a kid learning to read (and perhaps needing glasses), I used to read that as "MORNING TRAFFIC". I observed a while and couldn't see any point to it and finally asked an adult.

      --
      His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
    5. Re:could it be by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Interesting

      No, the hieroglyphs were a form of direct language. The Emoji is actually more like a form of punctuation. If you look at President Lincoln's hand written speeches, he notated them with little pictures, letting him know when to look at the audience and where. How to inflect his voice, and what emotions to show.

      Much of this informal communication was lost when we moved over to typed documents, this was due to a limited number characters available for a type writer, and printing presses, then to limited the character set in computers to 8 bits or less, due to expense and technical limitations (large and overly complex keyboard).

      Now with modern technology with 64bit microprocessors, Gigs of RAM, and video that handles 32bit color at an insane resolution in nearly everyone's pockets. And with a gesture based interface, that doesn't require a physical keyboard. The Emoji is back into our language in a new form.

       

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    6. Re:could it be by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You should look up the history of the language where the word emoji originated from.
      Spoiler: It's Japanese.
      As far as I know it's a language who used single symbols to express thought concepts that sometimes could be very complex. And they apparently had their design of the symbols inspired by the physical objects. I do think that emoji are a natural extension of their structure of thoughts.
      In 'our' indo-european languages however these memes bring new possible ways to introduce ambiguity into our language.
      And like someone mentioned above, I think the judicial system should treat these just like any other ambiguous speech.

    7. Re:could it be by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Most humans on the moon.
      Most dogs in space.
      Most world wars.
      Highest percent of people vaccinated.

      Yeah, I see what you mean.

    8. Re: could it be by ememisya · · Score: 1

      :P

    9. Re:could it be by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, primarily due to poor UI developers(physical and electronic) who think labels sully their information sparse designs.

  6. the ultimate code language by sad_ · · Score: 2, Insightful

    you can make it to mean whatever you want it to mean.
    the emoji's have their 'official' meaning, but that can change depending on its use (create a movie title only using emoji, etc).
    or you could create a secret code book made out of emoji characters and then only other people having the code book will be able to 'read' your text.

    it's basically impossible to prove a series of emoji's mean anything.

    --
    On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
    1. Re:the ultimate code language by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wut... Explain exactly what emojis allow that couldn't be achieved by combinations of letters or how an emoji code book would be any harder to crack that one based on standard characters?

    2. Re:the ultimate code language by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      or you could create a secret code book made out of emoji characters and then only other people having the code book will be able to 'read' your text.

      OK, this one is true for any set of symbols.

      You can create a secret code book made out of the alphabet and then only other people having the code book will be able to 'read' your text. (Actually looked at a couple of military code books that were like that.)

    3. Re:the ultimate code language by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's like with patents: if you add "on a computer" it's suddenly new and innovative.

    4. Re:the ultimate code language by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The issue here is that prosecutors haven't figured out how weak emoji evidence is yet. They are treating it like other written evidence, when it is in fact far more open to interpretation.

      We have no details of the alleged pimping case, but you would hope that they were not relying too heavily on some emoji to get the conviction.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    5. Re:the ultimate code language by Zocalo · · Score: 1

      I had the same first thought, but there are a LOT of emoji. That means you could have multiple emoji refering to the same character of the plain text and randomly choose between them, and you'd also still be able to use more complicated cypher methods than plain substitution to foil simple statistical analysis. You could also substitute short strings of characters (which is what emoji ultimately are in ASCII) of course, e.g. the character "A" in your plain text might be replaced by "FOO", "BAR", and numerous of other options for a given point in the encryption process, so there's nothing particularly special about emoji in that regard.

      I think it would probably be a more computationally expensive task to brute force than a cypher with the same character set for input and output on a 1:1 basis, but probably still not as expensive as methods like public key, or any other proven math-based cypher techniques.

      --
      UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
    6. Re:the ultimate code language by kurkosdr · · Score: 4, Informative

      Not to mention emojis render differently on different platforms or versions of platforms. If I send an icon of a water pistol from a new phone it might appear as a gun on an older phone. Did I just made a death threat? The emoji name is actually "gun" but many platforms render it as a water pistol in their latest versions because public relations by vendors. As other people mentioned, the English language is getting cryptic and pictographic. Someone should try putting emojis in an EULA, let's see how they interpret this (this should show the pitfalls of using freeform text on contracts)

    7. Re:the ultimate code language by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We already have this problem with plain English. Remember Bill Clinton? "It depends on what the meaning of is is?" Lawyers can't even decide what a word means.

    8. Re:the ultimate code language by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Emojis are naturally ambiguous and people very often use them contrary to the official interpretation. Seemingly nonsensical sequences of emojis don't stand out. A famous example is that the poo emoji is sometimes mistakenly used to mean chocolate ice cream. It's not that you can't "crack the code". The advantage is that you can't prove that it is code, not just some weird expression of emotions. Maybe the defendant in this case meant one symbol as attractive (the high heels, representing her) and the other as business sense (the money bag, him), and the two of them working well together in a personal sense. I believe songs have been written about this theme.

    9. Re:the ultimate code language by K_os_2003 · · Score: 1

      Another message from the defendant included the crown emoji, which was said to signify that the “pimp is the king.” Ultimately, the ruling didn’t hinge on the interpretation of emoji, but they still provided evidentiary support.

      I think we have some details :) ;) :squirrel:

    10. Re:the ultimate code language by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      my girlfriend doesn't even realise that each emoji, especially the facial expression ones, has a specific meaning, so that her emoji-laden messages can be interpreted wildly incorrectly. So I just ignore emojis now. /user-who-cannot-remember-his-login

    11. Re:the ultimate code language by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

      Emojis are naturally ambiguous and people very often use them contrary to the official interpretation. Seemingly nonsensical sequences of emojis don't stand out. A famous example is that the poo emoji is sometimes mistakenly used to mean chocolate ice cream. It's not that you can't "crack the code". The advantage is that you can't prove that it is code, not just some weird expression of emotions. Maybe the defendant in this case meant one symbol as attractive (the high heels, representing her) and the other as business sense (the money bag, him), and the two of them working well together in a personal sense. I believe songs have been written about this theme.

      And, for the record, some of us just really like eggplant and are not being at all vulgar!

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    12. Re:the ultimate code language by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I can't wait for the supreme court case over whether it's obscene to put a ":P" emoji next to a poop emoji.

    13. Re:the ultimate code language by sysrammer · · Score: 2

      I can't wait for the supreme court case over whether it's obscene to put a ":P" emoji next to a poop emoji.

      Can't wait to see "Two Girls, One Emoji".

      --
      His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
    14. Re:the ultimate code language by jouassou · · Score: 1

      And with legal matters. Doing a crime "on the computer" is always worth stronger punishment.

    15. Re:the ultimate code language by jabberw0k · · Score: 1

      You are absolutely (blob). (blob) (blob) (blob). (blob) (blob) (blob) (blob) !!!

    16. Re:the ultimate code language by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why would it be obscene? The :P is clearly just indicating a "just kidding" to whatever you were indicating was shit.

    17. Re:the ultimate code language by PPH · · Score: 1

      render it as a water pistol in their latest versions because public relations

      Try sending that to the Wicked Witch of the West.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    18. Re:the ultimate code language by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Egplant Egplant Eggplant Monkeyface

    19. Re:the ultimate code language by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 1

      you can make it to mean whatever you want it to mean. the emoji's have their 'official' meaning, but that can change depending on its use (create a movie title only using emoji, etc). or you could create a secret code book made out of emoji characters and then only other people having the code book will be able to 'read' your text.

      it's basically impossible to prove a series of emoji's mean anything.

      I don't think that's really true. Try this:

      you can make it to mean whatever you want it to mean. the words have their 'official' meaning, but that can change depending on its use (create a movie title only using words, etc). or you could create a secret code book made out of words and then only other people having the code book will be able to 'read' your text.

      it's basically impossible to prove a series of words mean anything.

      Any text can be used in usual ways. Words have multiple meanings, their meanings change over time, there is slang, context, codes, etc.

      That doesn't mean that text has no meaning. It just means that someone may have to prove (to a jury, to police, to the public, etc.) that they were using it in unusual ways.

    20. Re:the ultimate code language by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The issue here is that prosecutors haven't figured out how weak emoji evidence is yet. They are treating it like other written evidence, when it is in fact far more open to interpretation.

      Well then I've got a news flash for you. Written evidence is weak and open to interpretation. This is nothing new for courts or prosecutors. The burden has always been how to show unambiguous meaning behind words, gestures, phrases, symbols, etc, that can be interpreted in multiple ways.

      It's why drafting contracts is so hard and why laws are constantly being interpreted by courts. English has far less precision than any programming language. Emojis are no different than any other type of evidence as far as courts are concerned.

      Nothing to see here, move along. IAAL.

    21. Re:the ultimate code language by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      i did.
      my wife wasn't impressed.

    22. Re:the ultimate code language by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      In our local court, if you are using any emoji, other than faces, you have to include pictures of what the emoji looks like on both the sending and the receiving devices (if known what kind they are), and a basic description of what they mean. Since then, almost every case includes archived copies of emojipedia and another emoji resource.

    23. Re:the ultimate code language by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can't really be that dumb to think that your comment means anything, can you? Equivocation is an important skill for lawyers.

    24. Re:the ultimate code language by sjames · · Score: 1

      It gets even more ambiguous when different devices have different depictions. On some devices, the gun emoji looks like a water pistol, on others like a real gun. So is the sender invoking violence or slapstick?

    25. Re:the ultimate code language by sjames · · Score: 1

      As soon as you mentioned emojis in a EULA, I thought of the tears of laughter emoji. I'd show you but this is /.

    26. Re:the ultimate code language by sjames · · Score: 1

      The difference is that use of emojis is recent enough that we don't have long established USUAL ways to use them. There's no baseline.

    27. Re: the ultimate code language by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What if it comes *before* the other one?

    28. Re:the ultimate code language by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Never wanted to be a Clinton apologist, but here goes:

      Bill Clinton is a lawyer. The discussion in question was whether he had sex with "that woman". The specific question? What 'is' sex? 'Is' sex intercorse or 'is' sex any kind of sexual interaction (such as the deed in question)? So the it depends on what the meaning of 'is' is.

      I'd throw in a few emojis, but this is /.

  7. ðY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ðY

    1. Re: ðY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Slashdot isn't prepared either.

      ðYZ

    2. Re: ðY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ðY vey!

  8. Well... by MitchDev · · Score: 1

    No need to encrypt everything, just "encode" everything in word that appear to have no connection or are hard if not impossible to interpret.

    Government (and corporate) spying are here to stay, so make it hard on them at least...

    1. Re:Well... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's called a cipher and is exactly what "encrypt" means.

      The problem is that sort of cipher doesn't actually work and can be broken trivially due to the fact it does not modify the statistical properties of the underlying language it is used to encrypt.

    2. Re:Well... by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 1

      That's called a cipher and is exactly what "encrypt" means.

      Er... no.

      https://stackoverflow.com/ques...

      --
      "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
    3. Re:Well... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, a word or letter substitution would be a code. It is similar, since it also tries to obfuscate the message, but it is not the same as a cipher.

  9. Have better evidence by sjbe · · Score: 1

    If your case depends in any significant way on interpreting the intent of an emoji then (near as makes no difference) you have no objectively useful evidence.

    1. Re: Have better evidence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Any fact could be proven true. How badly do you want to prove it

    2. Re: Have better evidence by sysrammer · · Score: 1

      Any fact could be proven true. How badly do you want to prove it

      True enough. "If the emoji fits, you must acquit!"

      --
      His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
  10. Emojis in passwords by OzPeter · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This week I had to create an account on an US government website to process some forms. I was surprised to see that as a part of the password recommendations they said that you could use emojis. This was the first time that I have encountered such a clause and it was doubly surprising that it was on a US government website.

    I stuck to a regular plain old string of random characters and digits, but I could see how people who think in emoji could prefer an emoji password.

    --
    I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
    1. Re:Emojis in passwords by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Latest advice from NIST is that password complexity requirements shouldn't be allowed. People find it hard to make a password that meets them and that's memorable at the same time. So they generally aren't secure enough ("nameofpet123"), get reused, or even written down on post-it notes.

      Emojis are just data. Since it should be hashed it shouldn't really matter what character set you're using. Security comes from password length not enforcing other complexity rules.

      Password managers are the best way to get people to use extremely long passwords and avoid password reuse since they no longer need to remember them (NIST advice).

    2. Re:Emojis in passwords by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Emojis are just data.

      Of course I should add it is *unicode* data rather than an ASCII character set. But you should be handling that already since there are plenty of keyboards with accents, umlauts, etc that don't fit in the ASCII character set or even the extended one. Not to mention non-western keyboards.

    3. Re:Emojis in passwords by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unicode
        'HORSE' (U+1F40E)
        'BATTERY' (U+1F50B)
      sorry nothing for 'staple'
        'WARNING SIGN' (U+26A0)

    4. Re:Emojis in passwords by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

      This week I had to create an account on an US government website to process some forms. I was surprised to see that as a part of the password recommendations they said that you could use emojis.

      That's all well and good until you need to log into the website from a computer keyboard and can't log in because you can't type an emoji (and besides using some trick most computer users don't know).

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    5. Re:Emojis in passwords by OzPeter · · Score: 1

      Password managers are the best way to get people to use extremely long passwords and avoid password reuse since they no longer need to remember them (NIST advice).

      Where do you think my password, the 5 security questions/answers and the special reset code that is generated when the account is created all ended up?

      OTOH there is now a fight between convenience and security in using the master password to open up my password manager. So now I have all my eggs in one basket controlled by a single password.

      --
      I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
    6. Re:Emojis in passwords by OzPeter · · Score: 1

      Unicode

        'HORSE' (U+1F40E)

        'BATTERY' (U+1F50B)
      sorry nothing for 'staple'

        'WARNING SIGN' (U+26A0)

      This post has a "staple"character https://www.reddit.com/r/unico..._latin_letter_staple_with_combining_staple_above/

      A random re-coding website said it is %u02AD

      Of course /. strips it out!

      --
      I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
    7. Re:Emojis in passwords by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Security comes from password length not enforcing other complexity rules.

      Well, size of character set and length, which adding emoji will help with the first one. /nitpick

    8. Re:Emojis in passwords by Immerman · · Score: 1

      True, but you can protect that basket a lot more efficiently than dozens of separate passwords. Use a key-file as well as a password for added security. Store your more sensitive passwords in a separate PM on a flash drive that you only plug in when you need them, secured by a keyfile on your computer so that an attacker will need access to both to get at your stored passwords.

      It still won't protect you from a competent, targeted attack - but there's not really much you can do against those anyway, unless you're the sort to routinely check the firmware on your keyboard to make sure it hasn't been compromised since you last used it. But it will largely protect you against becoming a target of convenience - which is the primary purpose of most security. Like the old adage about bears: you don't have to be able to run faster than the bear, just faster than the slowest person in your group.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    9. Re:Emojis in passwords by jabberw0k · · Score: 1

      How does *anyone* enter those funny blobs? Do folks have hidden 3,000-key keyboards hidden in their basements?

    10. Re:Emojis in passwords by GuB-42 · · Score: 1

      Any Unicode string should be accepted as a password. It includes emoji and any piece of weirdness Unicode has to offer.
      The only thing is that the string should be normalized first, this is because there are cases where the same character can have different representations: for example, é can be represented both as a single code point or something like e combined with '.

    11. Re:Emojis in passwords by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Alt+numpad numbers?

    12. Re:Emojis in passwords by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Passords are (oddly) one of the better places for emoji.

      Emoji are relatively easy to remember, but there are a lot of them, so this is basically a horsebattarystaplecorrect but without the opportunity for people who don't understand the math to mess it up by converting it to something that reduces to an easier attack surface.

    13. Re:Emojis in passwords by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

      How does *anyone* enter those funny blobs? Do folks have hidden 3,000-key keyboards hidden in their basements?

      In windows 10 you can right click on the task bar and choose a "touch keyboard" and emojis are available from that. (but most people don't know that trick).

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    14. Re:Emojis in passwords by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, they are not controlled by a single password. They are controlled by a single untrustworthy third-party.

    15. Re:Emojis in passwords by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Art of the Bodge: How I Made The Emoji Keyboard by Tom Scott

  11. So what is the exponent? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Exponentially" is a term of art, so please either show that you know how to use it properly, or pick some other "dis r rilly big y'no"-expression. Abuse of terms of art doesn't make you sound smart. On the contrary. But maybe too much Dunning-Kruger effect in play to notice, hm?

    1. Re: So what is the exponent? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is stink on shit a term of art?

    2. Re:So what is the exponent? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I believe it's likely just as you said, they use it as an informal expression for something that's growing quickly. The general public will it understand exactly that way. Because the colloquial meaning of is to express a growth rate that is not under our control.
      If you ask me, the expression is an analogy of how foreign organisms can outgrow our immune system responses and may kill us. And since exponential functions/logarithms are a bit too much math for the common person, people just ignore the accuracy of that part.

      Also, since you only asked for the exponent, you may want to check your own knowledge about the mathematical side of exponential growth before bringing up the Dunning-Kruger effect.

    3. Re:So what is the exponent? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It means the instantaneous rate of growth is proportionate to the current magnitude, and therefore it can be approximated as an exponential function in the time domain.

      That's probably actually true of emoji use as it's a social phenomenon and the more people use it the more pressure there is for those who don't to start using it. Additionally as population growth is exponential, even a fixed percentage of the population using it would still mean the population of emoji users is growing exponentially as population grows.

    4. Re:So what is the exponent? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I believe it's likely just as you said, they use it as an informal expression for something that's growing quickly. The general public will it understand exactly that way. Because the colloquial meaning of is to express a growth rate that is not under our control.

      I'd use "explosive" for that. Much more graphic, less pretentious.

      Also, since you only asked for the exponent, you may want to check your own knowledge about the mathematical side of exponential growth before bringing up the Dunning-Kruger effect.

      Maybe, or maybe not. Reasons why left as an exercise.

  12. Mandatory Lucifer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oh I get to start a new theme.
    Mandatory Lucifer
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Od9NtYsplQ

    Thad_the_man.

  13. Easy solution by nagora · · Score: 1

    Just put anyone that uses emojis in gaol and throw away the key. Everyone's a winner.

    --
    "Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
    1. Re:Easy solution by houghi · · Score: 1

      Just put anyone that uses emojis in gaol and throw away the key. Everyone's a winner.

      :-)

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    2. Re:Easy solution by azcoyote · · Score: 1

      We Americans don't understand this word “gaol.” Perhaps you meant to say *lockemoji* *policeemoji* *sadfaceemoji*?

      --
      Incipiamus, fratres, servire Domino Deo, quia hucusque vix vel parum in nullo profecimus.
    3. Re:Easy solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It used to be primarily where France is.

  14. The Wire 2, Emoticon age by nospam007 · · Score: 1

    McNulty. What the fuck did I do?

  15. who else is not prepared? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    /.

  16. It's time to shine baby by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Now I can finally get my perl6 job

    Thanks unicode support

  17. That's an easy question in the US system. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    IAAL: In the US evidence is construed in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. Assuming, however, you're just discussing evidence introduced at trial for a judge or jury to construe, that's exactly their job to take all the evidence and decide in the context of all things considered what does the evidence mean and, depending on the standard of guilt for that trial, what does it all mean and does it outweigh the standard.

    There's nothing new about ambiguity in evidence, emojis change nothing.

  18. Jury? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    How is this different from the spoken word, ordinary text or even txt spk?

    It is the Juries job to interpret evidence, I don't see this as a big challenge for the courts to contend with.

    1. Re:Jury? by cellocgw · · Score: 1

      It is the Juries job to interpret evidence, I don't see this as a big challenge for the courts to contend with.

      To state the obvious: the judge decides what evidence is allowed to be presented to the jury. If emojis are considered either prejudicial, irrelevant, or ambiguous, the jury won't see them.

      --
      https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
  19. Is There A Codex? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I see several emoji combinations in common use that I can't decipher.

    For instance, what does eggplant(aubergine) mean? Usually in conjunction with the Venus gender symbol.

  20. Also words by Livius · · Score: 1

    Emoji can substitute for complex ideas in a concise form. Some words do that.

    Emoji can express a simple idea and also convey emotion. The right word can do that.

    Emoji can express intentional ambiguity. Words also.

    I don't doubt that there's more brevity, emotion, ambiguity and/or context dependence with emojis, which is why they are used instead of words some of the time, but the problem in terms of evidence admissible in court isn't new.

    What's different is that all emoji are new, and there isn't the same kind of consensus about their meaning and use.

    1. Re:Also words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      (eggpant emoji)

      he he - unsolicited eggplant pic

    2. Re:Also words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The meaning of an emoji can change rapidly (emoji's have been a trendy item) or have a way different meaning with different groups of people. So good luck with trying to prove what it meant.

  21. Re: How do courts deal with other ambiguous speech by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The original smileys are also context dependent

    So neither belongs in a court of law

  22. How is that different than text? by Shaitan · · Score: 2

    Tone and inflection are nearly everything. Without them you are very nearly having a conversation with an imaginary character in your mind combined with your own mannerisms and bias. These things are already extremely ambiguous. I don't really see that emoji is worse.

  23. I highly doubt it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If there are words, the words will be interpreted. This must have heen posted by a millennial - your generation didn't invent emoji or unicode or even 'smileys' (neither did *America* invent emoji). Judges are typically pretty bright people, unlike most Western twenty-somethings.

  24. 1000 words by supernova87a · · Score: 1

    In general, both the legal system and legislative record suffer from a really stupid attachment to testimony being recorded in long form prose only.

    Just think of all those congressional records and court transcripts / decisions with numbered lines and "whereas", "notwithstanding subsection 1)b)IV.." and "15% of the subtotal of appropriations designated..." or "a line defined by the coordinates 42d23'11"N, 73d45'04"W to the point 44d..."

    So many words (and minds) would be clarified by the ability to show simple figures and charts that explain a topic so much better than words. It almost biases the system to be asking for legalese and prose rather than equations, diagrams, and diagrammatic precision (to the extent that someone takes the time to think through and present those ideas properly).

  25. preparation is key by BlackOverflow · · Score: 1

    Can anyone truly be prepared for an emoji?

  26. Emoticons or Smileys. Emoji is the retarded term. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This news seems like non-news btw. How would courts "be prepared" for emoticons?

  27. Can't login on all devices by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Want if you're using an emoji that is specific to your device? I've noticed not all emojis are the same across all devices or versions of the OS, it sounds problematic

  28. Re: Indochimp Miss Mash by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He probably has an MBA

  29. o my by the+positive+path+ · · Score: 1

    (sad face)

  30. Exponentially by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Turd to the one over horsehead squared.