Emojis and emoticons are especially popular with the teen set, in part because this appealing artwork can express a complex emotion or sentiment with one simple click. Friend's dog died? Tearful face. Boyfriend sent flowers? Hearty eyes. Aced an exam? Fist pump!
But when is a winky face a menace? Is poo a serious insult? And is there any legitimate reason to text somebody a knife or gun icon?
With the recent felony arrest of a Virginia middle school student who posted a message on Instagram along with a bomb, knife, and gun icon and the words "Killing" and "Meet me in the library Tuesday," it's clear that law enforcement is taking seriously any threat made online, regardless of whether the user intended it as a "joke" by using emojis to heighten or replace written language.
And the penalties are steep: The 12-year-old girl in question is being charged with computer harassment and making a threat against her school, the latter of which is a class E felony that could mean four years in jail — despite her mother's protestations that the girl is "a good kid who's never been in trouble."
Across the country, law enforcement and prosecutors are seeing similar incidents. Most recently, Brooklyn teenager Osiris Aristy was arrested for posting several status updates on Facebook that included threats to kill police officers. His messages, which contained expletives and a list of police precincts, included rounds of ammunition and revolver emojis pointed at police officer emojis.
Aristy, 17, was quickly charged with making terroristic threats, which the New York State Penal Law defines as "intent to intimidate or coerce a civilian population […] by murder, assassination or kidnapping" and thereby causing "a reasonable expectation or fear of the imminent commission of such offense."
Aristy's lawyer, Fred Pratt, told NBC News in a phone interview that such laws were put into place after 9/11 and are aimed at preventing "real terrorism," not "kids posting emojis."
His client was "just bragging," Pratt said.
Aristy's defense that he "never threatened to act on" his depiction of guns pointed at police officers was little comfort to cops at local precincts.
"You make a threat on the Internet, we're going to be watching," NYPD Inspector Maximo Tolentino, commanding officer of Bushwick's 83rd Precinct, told news website DNAinfo. "We are going to attempt to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law."
"The grand jury dismissed this case because there was no direct threat communicated to the police," Pratt told NBC News. Aristy was "posting these emojis where his friends could see them. A police officer 'friended' him. Aristy didn't email the 83rd Precinct and tell them he was planning on doing something.
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