Judiciary’s View on Visual Digital Expressions: An Analysis of Interpretation of Emojis
Keywords:
Emoji, Contracts, Judicial precedents, Interpretation of CourtsAbstract
While critics expressed their concerns that emotions cannot be truly expressed via text, Emojis were designed for the rescue. Emojis are tiny digital icons used to convey feelings through text messages. It is now used more than ever, to a point that if a person refrains from using emojis, he will possibly be assumed to be rude, introverted, too professional to send in a casual message or to be lacking digital literacy. It has to be accepted that it is impossible to understand the meaning of each and every emoji, not to mention the different ways of interpretation according to culture and context. While we are slowly trying to realize that emojis may not have the same meaning at all times, a case in the court for using an emoji is nothing as expected. This paper seeks to analyze the ways in which the various courts have recognized and interpreted the usage of emojis in terms of contracts and for acknowledging existence of mens rea. Additionally, the papers also seek to analyze whether there is uniformity in interpretation of emojis across various parts of the world is feasible and if not what are some of the factors that are considered by the courts to interpret the meaning of emojis.
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