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Young Girl Faces Criminal Charges For Using Emojis

A 12-year-old girl faces criminal charges for posting a message with emojis of a🔫, 🔪, 💣 and a 👮. The schoolgirl from Fairfax Virginia is accused of “threatening her school.” Business Insider UK reports: The 12-year-old from Fairfax, Va., has been charged with threatening her school after police said she posted a message on Instagram in December laden with gun, bomb and knife emojis. It read in part: Killing 🔫 “meet me in the library Tuesday” 🔫🔪💣 As emoji and their relative the emoticon have rocketed from web slang to the unofficial language of the Internet age, the case is one of a growing number where authorities contend the cartoonish symbols have been used to stalk, harass, threaten or defame people. And that has left the police and courts wrestling with how to treat a newly popular idiom many still dimly grasp. A grand jury in New York City recently had to decide whether 👮 🔫 represented a true threat to police officers. A Michigan judge was asked to interpret the meaning of a face with a tongue sticking out: :P. Emoji even took a turn in the Supreme Court last year in a high-profile case over what constitutes a threat. Such [...]