At this point, emoji are basically a part of the English alphabet. We all use them every day, obsessing over the cute little smiley faces and sarcastic grimaces that we can use to communicate our feelings without being around our friends in person. While it may be all fun and games for most of us, this 12-year-old girl in Fairfax, Va. is facing criminal charges because of her emoji usage.
According to the The Washington Post, the girl is being charged with threatening her school and for computer harassment, after an alarming post was discovered on Instagram in December. The post partially read, “Killing,” and “meet me in the library Tuesday,” punctuated with gun, knife and bomb emoji.
The police began questioning students and were lead to the young girl in question. She admitted to the authorities that she did post the messages, under the name of another student. The girl was scheduled to make an appearance in court, although the results of the case are not yet known to the public.
“She’s a good kid. She’s never been in trouble before,” the girl’s mother told The Washington Post, saying that the Instagram post was a reaction to being bullied at school. “I don’t think it’s a case where there should have been charges.”
Similar cases have been popping up throughout the country. Recently, a grand jury in New York had to decide if using the police man and gun emoji together could be considered a threat to police officers. With the interpretation of emoji being so broad, it’s difficult to tell what is meant as a dangerous threat, and what’s meant as a harmless joke. It’s a brave new world, and we’ve got to realize that the emoji we use while texting could be just as important as the actual words we type.