Emojis are increasingly coming up in court cases

[akersten]

I would hope any case where the emoji is described rather than shown to a jury would be tossed as a mistrial. Could you imagine the court describing video evidence instead of allowing the jury to review it?

And yes, what to show for the emoji? Which platform's rendering? What about reactions to the message that can be added in some apps?

All in all I weigh emojis very little compared to other possible evidence considering how convoluted this all is.

And of course sending someone a knife emoji is not a threat. A threat requires specifics.

[dpflan]

Valid point about the rendering: I wonder how often Emoji cross-platform rendering causes confusion. (then such confusion leads to something that is presented in court).

> https://emojipedia.org/

[anigbrowl]

Courts still want everything written out as if it had to be read to a blind a blind person, which is why it's unusual to see legal briefs even use bullet points but instead a) make the b) same points inline although this is c) much harder to read.

In general most legal writing and procedure is overwrought and obscurantist, not least to serve as a moat between the profession and the public. While I enjoy reading complex arguments and legal witticisms, such archaisms really do a disservice to the public. Many legal documents could be 2/3 the length and far more accessible without any sacrifice of accuracy or depth.

[marcosdumay]

Well, at least they have a standard description. There are worse things to omit.

If the visual of the emoji is relevant, the defense can always fix it by showing it to the jury.

[cryptoz]

> For example, the pistol emoji looks like a real gun on some devices and a water or toy gun on others.

Article mentions the water gun issue but fails to note that it also changed on the platforms. Open the message one day and see a picture of a real gun, open it the next and see a picture of a toy water gun.

[levythe]

Or even that it changes depending upon the container it's displayed within

[jedberg]

> No court guidelines exist on how to approach the topic.

That seems odd. If I send a hand-drawn picture of a knife to someone, I'm pretty sure that would be entered as evidence. Why would a text message with the knife emoji be any different?

[pdshrader]

For those who are interested in this type of subject matter, I can highly recommend Eric Goldman's blog (the primary source for this article), at https://blog.ericgoldman.org/

Goldman was one of the first "internet lawyers" in Silicon Valley in the 90s, and his blog is a treasure trove of interesting recent court cases on marketing and the internet.

[walrus01]

I wonder if there's any public court transcripts where they've put a Unicode expert on the witness stand to explain, in layman terms, what an emoji really is.

[martin1975]

:-)

[cryptoz]

Do you mean U+1F604? (HN won't render emoji) https://emojipedia.org/smiling-face-with-open-mouth-and-smil...

:-) has nearly none of the issues that the emojis have, as it is static, displays nearly the same on all devices, and is not corporate-controlled.

[amelius]

How about animated gifs?

[johnisgood]

Or memes... banned memes!