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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.

57 of 118 comments (clear)

  1. Plural Form by Kunedog · · Score: 2

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

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

      Emojis also accepted as plurial form.

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

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

    3. 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!"
    4. Re:Plural Form by Highdude702 · · Score: 1

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

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

      The English translation is "Jism Splash" ...

  2. 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 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.

  3. 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 ememisya · · Score: 1

      :P

  4. 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: 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.)

    2. 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
    3. 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!
    4. 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)

    5. 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:

    6. 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
    7. 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
    8. Re:the ultimate code language by jouassou · · Score: 1

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

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

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

    10. 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.
    11. 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.

    12. 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.

    13. 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?

    14. 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 /.

    15. 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.

  5. 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 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
  6. 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 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
  7. 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 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
    3. 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?
    4. 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?
    5. 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.
    6. 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?

    7. 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 '.

    8. 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
  8. 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.
  9. The Wire 2, Emoticon age by nospam007 · · Score: 1

    McNulty. What the fuck did I do?

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

    Now I can finally get my perl6 job

    Thanks unicode support

  11. 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
  12. 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.

  13. 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.

  14. 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).

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

    Can anyone truly be prepared for an emoji?

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

    (sad face)