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The law and emoji: When a thumbs-up gets a thumbs-down
Things get complicated when judges have to rule on the meaning of a smiling moon.
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More than 3,600 emoji currently exist. By one estimate, 10 billion emoji are sent daily.
PHOTO: UNSPLASH
Stephen L. Carter
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Social media is all atwitter – um, all a-X-er? – about the emoji at the heart of the recent United States federal court ruling allowing a securities suit to proceed against billionaire investor Ryan Cohen. To be sure, litigation following a corporate collapse sprouts like weeds, but, in this case, both my law-professor and wordsmith sides are fascinated by the allegation that Mr Cohen used an image of a smiling moon to boost the stock price of Bed Bath & Beyond, after which he started selling his significant stake.
The law professor in me marvels at the way judges must now struggle with the collapse of formal language. The wordsmith despairs at... well, the collapse of formal language, the costs of which we will be some while counting.
