Emojis: Better Safe Than Sorry? 😕

To no surprise, yet another young student has become a victim of the "zero-tolerance" policy.  A 12-year-old has been charged with threatening her school with an Instagram post saying:

Killing 🔫

“meet me in the library Tuesday”

🔫 🔪 💣

After a police investigation led to her, she was charged with threatening her school of Sidney Lanier Middle School in Fairfax, Virginia based on this one post, according to the Washington Post and Teen Vogue.

Her mother told the Washington Post that the post was in response to being bullied at school.  But it's ultimately up to the court to decide.

Another teenager was, also, charged based on their emojis on social media.  This New York City teenager was charged with making a terrorist threat to their school after posting:

👮🔫 🔫 🔫 

There has been a lot of controversy in courts over the past few years as to whether emojis should be taken seriously.  Tyler Schnoebelen, a linguist and founder of a company called Idibon, told the Post, "emoji are new enough that people are finding their footing...they are all going into fresh legal territory."

This would explain courts' uncertainty as to whether these emojis pose any threats, but they seem to be assuming that all of these cases are infact threatening just to be safe.  Yet, it looks like the young people are the ones who are sorry.