Fortunately the legal system is flexible enough to accommodate questions like this, both with interpretations of the law and with juries to determine the facts.

This isn't a new problem caused by emoji. You could make a similar argument about conversations had over the phone, turn signals, even physical contact.

Yeah. It's amazing that people in technology so often are unable to comprehend that the legal system is not a bunch of statements where debating the meaning of words or symbols or obscure things like rendering somehow are magic to bypass the law's intent.

The simple answer is, it's not "what it looked like to the other person" it's the intent of the author.

A nitpick, but for your latter point it depends on the question.

In some cases it's the intent that matters, but the law often tries to avoid questions about actual intent because that's too difficult to figure out. Instead the question might hinge on what a reasonable person would have thought, or what the victim actually thought.

> often tries to avoid questions about actual intent because that's too difficult to figure out.

Of course the law tries to avoid it. But that’s sometimes impossible, thus disagreements and trials and judges and whatnot.

It’s not like ambiguity causes everything to crash. It just requires judgement that usually gets settled before it gets to court.

You have an optimistic view of the legal system. Sure intent matters, but you may still get arrested, spend many nights in jail, get fired from your job, and spend thousands of dollars on legal fees and bail while the system figures out your intent.

I’d note in America many nights can easily mean many years in jail without a trial.

South America maybe?

Yep. What Color are your bits.

Only anglo-tard, 'guess the intent' legal systems. "Is he a person having bad thoughts?"

If you were accused of using a pistol emoji you or your lawyer would present evidence that it was a water gun on your device.

But what if you knew that your water pistol is rendered as a gun

The prosecutor would argue it at trial and a jury would decide if the argument is convincing beyond a reasonable doubt.

On the article, the "side-eyed-moon" doesn't look like a side eyed moon to me. It looks like a normal smiley face.

Same here. Firefox on Linux; not sure what extra font packages I've installed at various times.

Even worse, sending a friendly affectionate yellow heart -- how was I supposed to know the recipient was using [Android 4.42](https://thenextweb.com/news/pink-hairy-hart-emoji)?