That is no smiley: A wrong emoji can land you in court

Internationally, the increasing use of emojis has proven to be a challenge for lawyers, judges, and lawmakers.

A recent emoji miscommunication in a WhatsApp chat with a colleague means I no longer try to be sarcastic in my chats. Emojis can liven up a drearily dull chat but those harmless little icons we put at the end of a sentence or use standalone when we don't have much to say may not be so harmless after all. Used wrongly, they can put one in front of a judge, trying to explain the context, circumstances and the motive behind sending that 'see-no-evil monkey' emoji to one's colleague.
There are over 3,000 emojis in the Unicode Standard and billions of emojis are used daily in chats. Internationally, the increasing use of emojis has proven to be a challenge for lawyers, judges, and lawmakers. In 2015, a grand jury reportedly declined to indict a Brooklyn teen who was charged with making a terrorist threat on his Facebook page after posting a policeman emoji, and three guns pointing towards it. "I don't think he actually threatened anyone," said the boy's lawyer but the fact is that it will boil down to the interpretation of the court if it reaches one.
There's local precedence, too - a court in Ras Al Khaimah recently examined a case in which an Asian worker faced accusations of libel and slander because he posted a fox emoji on a picture of a group of people. Legally speaking, the emoji is not seen as just an informal way to express your emotions - it is seen as a legitimate form of communication. Which means that the emoji of a gun or a knife can be construed as a threat if used in a heated chat.
In the absence of actual words - and considering that emojis still offer limited choice - there may be problems with assuming a definite motive behind the use of an emoji. How often have we heard 'it's not what you said, it's the way you said it' in an argument? A WhatsApp chat or Facebook messages are, often, devoid of a tone of voice, further complicating the picture. Courts will obviously look at the entire chat to understand the background and draw up a frame of reference, but it may not always be easy, especially if one were trying to be sarcastic.