Middle schooler is criminally charged for making threats with emojis
A 12-year-old is being charged with making threats against her school using emojis, the Washington Post reported Saturday.
The girl is from Fairfax, Virginia, and her name was not given because she’s a minor. Police say she made an Instagram post in December that said, in part: “Killing [gun emoji] meet me in the library Tuesday [gun emoji] [knife emoji] [bomb emoji]”
In mid-December, a school resource officer from Sidney Lanier Middle School subpoenaed the IP address of the person who posted the message. That led to the girl, who admitted making the posting under another student’s name. The school found the threat not credible, but the student was charged with computer harassment and threatening the school.
The girl’s mother told the newspaper that it was a reaction to being bullied and that she doesn’t think criminal charges are appropriate. It’s not clear whether the case has been resolved, the Post said, because juvenile proceedings are closed to the press.
If the proceedings do continue, the Post said, authorities will have to work out what exactly the emojis mean. That’s currently not clear, since emojis are pictures with no dictionary definition and their meanings might vary between contexts.
This has been an issue in other criminal cases, including one that landed at the U.S. Supreme Court last year. Elonis v. United States asked whether Internet threats against the defendant’s former wife, former boss and an FBI agent were “true threats.” Attorneys for Anthony Elonis argued in part that his use of a :-p emoticon indicated that he was joking. The case was remanded without directly addressing the emoticon issue.
In another case, a New York grand jury had to decide whether emojis of a police officer and three guns, along with “N—a run up on me, he gunna get blown down,” consisted a true threat. It ultimately declined to indict the 17-year-old who’d posted that, the Post reports.
Attorney Fred Pratt told the Post that kids are often posturing, not making serious threats, but “something is definitely lost in translation.”
See also:
ABA Journal: “What’s the evidentiary standard for emojis?”
ABAJournal.com: “Courts struggle to sort out meanings of emoticons and emoji”
ABAJournal.com: “Where should the line between free speech and accountability be drawn on social media?”
ABAJournal.com: “Is emoji death threat a criminal offense? Possibly, law prof says”
