Emoji are showing up as evidence in court more frequently • Hacker News Board

Re: Emoji are showing up as evidence in court more frequently

#21

Post by huffmsa » Wed, Apr 03, 2019, 10:24 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #19

huffmsa wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cultural or psychological differences in interpreting facial expressions. It's clearly not despair to me. The mouth is upturned, which indicates smiling. But to someone who can't easily differentiate upturned from downturned, it might be despair.

In blown-up version like this it's easier to see the upturn. In smaller renderings, like in Facebook & Google products on my desktop and on the phone (or pixelated copy-pastes of it on top of Facebook videos), the rendering sits squarely in the uncanny valley for me. It looks like smiling, but then it looks also like the face is in great pain, with all the muscles contracted, squeezing tears out of its tear ducts.

I suppose the guy who I'm responding to is expecting you to be familiar enough with the full selection of emoji to know that it's definitely the tears of joy emoji and that there isn't a nearly identical one for despair.

It'd be a poor design decision if there were. But it's also unreasonable to expect everyone to think like a good interaction designer.

Re: Emoji are showing up as evidence in court more frequently

#22

Post by huffmsa » Wed, Apr 03, 2019, 10:47 AM UTC

ecmascript wrote: post #14

huffmsa wrote: post #11

> After sending an enthusiastic text confirming that they wanted the apartment, Anyone who sends little yellow men as part of a business conversation deserves whatever misfortune befalls them. Anyone who conducts a business conversation over any medium but snail mail, fax, email or the phone deserves whatever misfortune befalls them. I know this is old-fashioned, but business is business, personal is personal.

Aren't you being a bit negative here?

Not in the slightest. I am, however, demonstrating that I was raised by lawyers and writers.

As a point of clarification, I'm all for emoji men and gifs in personal communication. I'm probably the biggest giphy user in any given slack group, but only once I feel comfortable with the other channel participants. One of the first things I do is install the cult of the party parrot emoji pack.

But for any communication with outside parties, or where money is on the table, there is no place for emoji, as they're too imprecise.

Re: Emoji are showing up as evidence in court more frequently

#23

Post by huffmsa » Wed, Apr 03, 2019, 10:49 AM UTC

ddeokbokki wrote: post #17

midgetjones wrote: post #15

Emoji have really filled a gap, where words typed on the internet were missing some context of how they are supposed to be read. And nowadays, whether or not I add the eggplant emoji to the end of a whatsapp message can really change how it's interpreted, and gives me less to excuse myself should it come up in court. But really, anything that removes doubt and clarity from a conversation has got to be a good thing. H…

People will argue that you should be able to convey your message clearly in plain English but those people don't realise that: - Not everyone masters English (even when it's your mother tongue, not everyone has access to the same education to be able to use it perfectly) - Languages are complex, we don't talk with words only, we use facial expressions and gestures, emojis help mimic those when only words are availabl…

If you have the time to consider what you're going to say, like in written communication, then yes, you should be able to do it with just words. Take your time, figure out what you want to say.

Re: Emoji are showing up as evidence in court more frequently

#24

Post by anoncake » Wed, Apr 03, 2019, 11:02 AM UTC

> Despite the potential for emoji to be interpreted in a wide array of ways, emoji experts don’t really exist. “Emoji usually have dialects. They draw meaning from their context. You could absolutely talk about emoji as a phenomenon, but as for what a particular emoji means, you probably wouldn’t go to a linguist. You would probably go to someone who’s familiar with that community, just like they did with the sex trafficking case,” Goldman says.

What does Goldman think linguists do when they research the meaning of words?

Re: Emoji are showing up as evidence in court more frequently

#25

Post by topmonk » Wed, Apr 03, 2019, 11:04 AM UTC

jobigoud wrote: post #8

TeMPOraL wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's one very popular emoji I particularly hate: https://emojipedia.org/face-with-tears-of-joy/ . Why? Because a) it looks bad (one of the worst made emojis out there), and b) when someone sends it to me, I have no clue what they mean. While it's technically "crying with joy", it also resembles crying with despair - and with regular people, who don't even know what "emoji" is or that they have names, I can't be 10…

It has a big smile. How would you interpret this as despair?

I know this is anecdotal but there are several examples of this on the web: https://imgur.com/gallery/2VRFr

Re: Emoji are showing up as evidence in court more frequently

#26

Post by adriand » Wed, Apr 03, 2019, 11:07 AM UTC

huffmsa wrote: post #23

ddeokbokki wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People will argue that you should be able to convey your message clearly in plain English but those people don't realise that: - Not everyone masters English (even when it's your mother tongue, not everyone has access to the same education to be able to use it perfectly) - Languages are complex, we don't talk with words only, we use facial expressions and gestures, emojis help mimic those when only words are availabl…

If you have the time to consider what you're going to say, like in written communication, then yes, you should be able to do it with just words. Take your time, figure out what you want to say.

Most emoji could likely be replaced with, "And when I say that, I mean it in an X way", where X equals "humourous", "joking", "angry", "flirtatious", etc. Which would be incredibly tedious.

Consider that when you read something with dialogue, e.g. a novel, the author will frequently utilize descriptive words to indicate the tone of the dialogue. E.g. '"You're not going anywhere," he snarled.' As such, a way to indicate tone using just words exists - it's just clumsy to do that for your own statements.

Re: Emoji are showing up as evidence in court more frequently

#27

Post by ahoka » Wed, Apr 03, 2019, 11:08 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #6

notimetorelax wrote: post #2

I frequently use the greening teeth emoji on my iPhone as a negative. Now I know that my Android addressees interpret this as positive.

There's one very popular emoji I particularly hate: https://emojipedia.org/face-with-tears-of-joy/ . Why? Because a) it looks bad (one of the worst made emojis out there), and b) when someone sends it to me, I have no clue what they mean. While it's technically "crying with joy", it also resembles crying with despair - and with regular people, who don't even know what "emoji" is or that they have names, I can't be 10…

"The political purpose of Newspeak is to eliminate ambiguity and nuance (shades of meaning) from the language, and so reduce the language to simple concepts—pleasure and pain, happiness and sadness ..."

Re: Emoji are showing up as evidence in court more frequently

#28

Post by huffmsa » Wed, Apr 03, 2019, 11:13 AM UTC

adriand wrote: post #26

huffmsa wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have the time to consider what you're going to say, like in written communication, then yes, you should be able to do it with just words. Take your time, figure out what you want to say.

Most emoji could likely be replaced with, "And when I say that, I mean it in an X way", where X equals "humourous", "joking", "angry", "flirtatious", etc. Which would be incredibly tedious. Consider that when you read something with dialogue, e.g. a novel, the author will frequently utilize descriptive words to indicate the tone of the dialogue. E.g. '"You're not going anywhere," he snarled.' As such, a way to indica…

But the context here are conversation which appear in the court records. So they're either breaches of a civil agreement, or criminal law.

By all means use them in your day to day conversations, but if you expect your messages to ever require interpretation in a court of law, and you don't want a jury to decide what you meant by eggplant, kissy face, don't use emoji.

Or, conversely, if you want to be ambiguous, like say you're a pimp communicating to his prostitutes, emoji usage might work in your favor.

Re: Emoji are showing up as evidence in court more frequently

#29

Post by lewisflude » Wed, Apr 03, 2019, 11:15 AM UTC

huffmsa wrote: post #11

> After sending an enthusiastic text confirming that they wanted the apartment, Anyone who sends little yellow men as part of a business conversation deserves whatever misfortune befalls them. Anyone who conducts a business conversation over any medium but snail mail, fax, email or the phone deserves whatever misfortune befalls them. I know this is old-fashioned, but business is business, personal is personal.

I know this might sound stupid, but I really find that softening the boundaries/traditional barriers between work/home really helps improve my quality of life.

I like feeling slightly relaxed at work, and I feel like I'm way more productive than in an environment that feels cold, corporate or artificial.

Having said this, I think that it's really important to listen to the cultural signals that arise from your work environment. I wouldn't be lax, or use emoji/gifs in an environment where it didn't feel appropriate.

Re: Emoji are showing up as evidence in court more frequently

#30

Post by huffmsa » Wed, Apr 03, 2019, 11:18 AM UTC

lewisflude wrote: post #29

huffmsa wrote: post #11

> After sending an enthusiastic text confirming that they wanted the apartment, Anyone who sends little yellow men as part of a business conversation deserves whatever misfortune befalls them. Anyone who conducts a business conversation over any medium but snail mail, fax, email or the phone deserves whatever misfortune befalls them. I know this is old-fashioned, but business is business, personal is personal.

I know this might sound stupid, but I really find that softening the boundaries/traditional barriers between work/home really helps improve my quality of life. I like feeling slightly relaxed at work, and I feel like I'm way more productive than in an environment that feels cold, corporate or artificial. Having said this, I think that it's really important to listen to the cultural signals that arise from your work e…

I mentioned it elsewhere, but I'm far and away the heaviest giphy user in my slack groups for internal conversation with teammates I'm comfortable and familiar with.

But any external conversations or conversations where money is on the table, emojis and gifs are too ambiguous.