I read the following article the other day and I thought it might be an interesting and amusing follow-up to my previous post dealing with emojis and their use in the classroom.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Lawyers Faced With Emojis and Emoticons Are All ¯\\(ツ)\/¯

Apparently, over the past 10 years, the number of legal cases involving emoticons and emojis has been steadily rising and has jumped significantly in the last two.  In 2017, there were at least 33 court decisions that mentioned the little guys, up from 25 in 2016 and 14 in 2015.

One case mentioned in the article that hits rather close to home was a defamation case here in Michigan.  According to writer Mike Cherney, in this case, “the meaning of an emoticon, an emoji-like image created with text characters from a standard keyboard, was up for debate. A comment on an internet message board appeared to accuse a local official of corruption. The comment was followed by a “:P” emoticon.

The judges on the Michigan Court of Appeals concluded in 2014 that the emoticon ‘is used to represent a face with its tongue sticking out to denote a joke or sarcasm.’ The court said the comment couldn’t be taken seriously or viewed as defamatory.”

Lesson: if you’re being rude to someone, “:P” is the new “bless their heart.”

Lawyers are coming up more and more against emojis and emoticons, the meaning of which have real legal consequences for the parties involved.  To help deal with this new and growing issue, lawyers have put together seminars, held informal meetings and courses, and done research studies on the topic of emojis and emoticons.

“Emoji Law 101” – coming soon to Harvard Law School (probably)!