The Humble Emoji Has Infiltrated the Corporate World (theatlantic.com) 56
An anonymous reader shares a report: A court in Washington, D.C., has been stuck with a tough, maybe impossible question: What does full moon face emoji mean? Let me explain: In the summer of 2022, Ryan Cohen, a major investor in Bed Bath & Beyond, responded to a tweet about the beleaguered retailer with this side-eyed-moon emoji. Later that month, Cohen -- hailed as a "meme king" for his starring role in the GameStop craze -- disclosed that his stake in the company had grown to nearly 12 percent; the stock price subsequently shot up. That week, he sold all of his shares and walked away with a reported $60 million windfall.
Now shareholders are suing him for securities fraud, claiming that Cohen misled investors by using the emoji the way meme-stock types sometimes do -- to suggest that the stock was going "to the moon." A class-action lawsuit with big money on the line has come to legal arguments such as this: "There is no way to establish objectively the truth or falsity of a tiny lunar cartoon," as Cohen's lawyers wrote in an attempt to get the emoji claim dismissed. That argument was denied, and the court held that "emojis may be actionable."
The humble emoji -- and its older cousin, the emoticon -- has infiltrated the corporate world, especially in tech. Last month, when OpenAI briefly ousted Sam Altman and replaced him with an interim CEO, the company's employees reportedly responded with a vulgar emoji on Slack. That FTX, the failed cryptocurrency exchange once run by Sam Bankman-Fried, apparently used these little icons to approve million-dollar expense reports was held up during bankruptcy proceedings as a damning example of its poor corporate controls. And in February, a judge allowed a lawsuit to move forward alleging that an NFT company called Dapper Labs was illegally promoting unregistered securities on Twitter, because "the 'rocket ship' emoji, 'stock chart' emoji, and 'money bags' emoji objectively mean one thing: a financial return on investment."
Now shareholders are suing him for securities fraud, claiming that Cohen misled investors by using the emoji the way meme-stock types sometimes do -- to suggest that the stock was going "to the moon." A class-action lawsuit with big money on the line has come to legal arguments such as this: "There is no way to establish objectively the truth or falsity of a tiny lunar cartoon," as Cohen's lawyers wrote in an attempt to get the emoji claim dismissed. That argument was denied, and the court held that "emojis may be actionable."
The humble emoji -- and its older cousin, the emoticon -- has infiltrated the corporate world, especially in tech. Last month, when OpenAI briefly ousted Sam Altman and replaced him with an interim CEO, the company's employees reportedly responded with a vulgar emoji on Slack. That FTX, the failed cryptocurrency exchange once run by Sam Bankman-Fried, apparently used these little icons to approve million-dollar expense reports was held up during bankruptcy proceedings as a damning example of its poor corporate controls. And in February, a judge allowed a lawsuit to move forward alleging that an NFT company called Dapper Labs was illegally promoting unregistered securities on Twitter, because "the 'rocket ship' emoji, 'stock chart' emoji, and 'money bags' emoji objectively mean one thing: a financial return on investment."
Re: (Score:2)
Is there a semi-erect and bent Dong emoji to accurately describe the judge in this case?
Upside-down eggplant?
Slashcode (Score:5, Funny)
Meanwhile, Slashcode is accepting your post as UTF-8, interpreting the bytes as Code Page 1252 code points, then transcoding *those* back to UTF-8. What a bunch of ðY'©.
And? (Score:2)
Emoji is used to communicate. It's a part of language. The article might as well read, "language that's used to communicate is used in a situation in which language is used to communicate." It's as noteworthy as cataloging when a new phrase is used for the first time in some new domain. Who cares?
Re:And? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
"It's a part of language."
No, the absence of any established definitions means that it is an inferior substitute for language: better suited for obscuring the meaning than conveying it. That's why the scammers in this story found them so useful.
Re: And? (Score:3, Interesting)
It's true the scammers used them because they're ambiguous, but courts are used to dealing with ambiguous communications. Lots of people who want to avoid legal consequences use deliberately ambiguous language in the hope of hiding their intent from the law. The court will usually let the triers of fact in the case determine what ambiguous things really meant.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, an infantile part of the language, used by trivial people as a substitute for making sense.
Re: (Score:3)
Emoji is used to communicate... Who cares?
Those who like to have words with definite meanings most certainly care. Especially when those words are used to communicate. That's kind of the point of the whole article.
Re: (Score:1)
OK, zoomer.
The whole point of the article is that this informal communication system used by kids for their social media crap is now having effects in the real world, where it has not hitherto been part of business communication.
Re: (Score:2)
The language you're using is something that your generation used as kids, which the older generation found abhorrent.
Re: (Score:2)
Can you point to anything specific? Both OK and crap are far older than I.
Re: (Score:2)
>Both OK and crap are far older than I.
Then your generation + 1. Doesn't change my point
Re: (Score:2)
Crap as "rubbish" goes back to at least 1898, and OK is attested from 1839.
If your point is that every part of communication was once upon a time novel and not universally accepted, it's not much of a point.
It's noteworthy that an emoji has now mattered for one of the first times ever.
Re: (Score:2)
you nailed it through - I think much of it has to do with the Zoomers are now old enough to have position where they have a little authority in corporate world. They are at least out the mailroom, finished with their internships and have job titles matching things like *analyst.
Other people see how they write and communicate things, adopt it. Even older people with greater authority, they see it, they don't immediately dismiss it as unprofessional and begin to use it about themselves.
Zoomers are starting to
Re: (Score:3)
... just like Morse code. ("Morse code" is actually a cipher and was invented by Morse's partner, Alfred Vaill, while the code Samuel Morse invented, converted letters to 3-digit numbers. Also, Vigenère's cipher was developed by Giovan B. Bellaso.)
That's a bad analogy because there's no context or ambiguity with a cipher.
U [poo] [whole human] [eggplant] [pie slice] [poo].
The Humble Emoji? (Score:5, Insightful)
Letters are humble. Emojis are arrogant pricks. All flash and sass with little to no class. They're the modern "hey look at me" version of writing. They are to letters as fires are to forests. They end communication in the name of being "better" than communication. Which is one of the dumber arguments I've heard made about why they're superior to the written word, but proponents of emoji aren't exactly known for being the sharpest bulbs in the candelabra.
When we get to the point where the lawyers start using emoji in their legal briefings, I think we'll have to have a serious come to Jesus moment as a specie. Until that time it's all popcorn and sodie-pops.
Re:The Humble Emoji? (Score:4, Informative)
They are NOT modern. They're the oldest form of writing we know of: Pictograms. How they should be interpreted, though, is often quite vague. But they date to back before the Chaldeans started writing or rolled out sheet of clay. (The earliest "contracts" we have record of were hollow balls of clay with pictograms on the outside.)
Re:The Humble Emoji? (Score:4, Interesting)
They are NOT modern. They're the oldest form of writing we know of: Pictograms. How they should be interpreted, though, is often quite vague. But they date to back before the Chaldeans started writing or rolled out sheet of clay. (The earliest "contracts" we have record of were hollow balls of clay with pictograms on the outside.)
While I was being somewhat facetious and hyperbolic with my reply, if you are trying to point out that emoji users are just trying to sort out written communication, you've quite amply demonstrated my claim for me. Pictograms as communication are people just trying to work out how to communicate in the written form. Which is a fairly accurate description of emoji use in the modern age.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not a comment about the users, it's a comment about the style. Pictograms are the base of all written communication. But they sure aren't new. They're also more intelligible by those who don't speak any particular language, but in turn they don't have any particular meaning. They point in a general direction. What does a picture of a donkey mean? Does it mean "You're a donkey? Does it mean "I'm offering to sell you a donkey"? Does it mean "We agreed to transfer title to a donkey"? No. It mean
Re: (Score:2)
So where's my mastodon-hunting emoji, dammit?!
Re: (Score:2)
Honestly, this says more about you being a stick in the mud than about the people using emojis ;)
Oh Poopji (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
If people of the Kardashian-fan variety of intelligence are able to understand emojiis I somehow think you'll do just fine once you get started.
Re: (Score:2)
https://media1.tenor.com/m/T-9... [tenor.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Except the same emoji can mean different things depending on your cultural background.
Take the kissing emoji, for example. In some countries a common greeting is a kiss on the cheek, while in others your first kiss is almost more sacred than losing your virginity. How are these two viewpoints ever going to agree what a kissing emoji at the end of a message means?!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Great, MORE "language" to learn...
No, you don't need to learn anything. Emojis are a reflection of physical cues you would normally use as part of language when talking in person. Posting a picture of a moon is no different to pointing to the moon or saying the word moon. In the context required to understand it, the fact that it is an emoji is uninteresting.
People can intuitively understand virtually all of the emojis in use. Well... okay an autist may not for obvious reasons, but everyone else can.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Of course. Obviously, a skull means something's very funny, while fire means it's wonderful.
An eggplant is a penis, and a peach is a butt.
Just like when you're talking to someone in person.
Very intuitive. Unlike language, emoji clearly have no arbitrary rules to learn.
Context is everything (Score:5, Insightful)
I would expect this to quietly settle quickly now with "no admission of fault".
Re: (Score:2)
No, their reply is meant to signify that taking it to a trial is pointless, as there can never be a realistic ruling on the matter. There is no evidence either way.
Re: (Score:2)
There is no evidence either way.
Of course there is evidence. Communication is based on an idea of common understanding. If a bunch of people understood the moon to mean one thing and acted on that understanding then that act is evidence of the communication.
The legal defence of "I didn't mean that" is virtually never upheld in court. e.g. Elon Musk has tried that multiple times.
Emoji: language for stupids (Score:1)
Pretty much the truth. Unsurprising it's leaking into the corporate world.
Canadian precedent (Score:4)
In a case in Canada, a judge ruled that a thumbs-up emoji can represent contract agreement [theguardian.com].
Emojis are a form of communication, and if the common meaning is clear, then I don't see why the court wouldn't consider the tweet to have the common meaning.
Re: (Score:1)
That judge must have been dropped on his head a few too many times as a child, that would explain why he was retarded.
ANYONE can send an emoji from a phone. How can anyone be sure it was the farmer himself agreeing to the contract without his actual signature, either digital or physical.
Re:Canadian precedent (Score:4, Informative)
The farmer did not dispute sending the emoji. Perhaps you should read the article next time.
Re: (Score:2)
It's much easier to be an old fart angry at how the world is changing than to you know read shit. Or because this is slashdot, I should say:
U+1F621 U+1F474 U+1F4A8
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
How can anyone be sure it was the farmer himself agreeing to the contract without his actual signature, either digital or physical.
You are apparently are ignorant of the concept of a verbal contract. You don't need a signature, digital or physical to engage in a contract. You just need an offer, acceptance, and consideration. Offer can be something as simple as a price tag. Acceptance can be the non-verbal, non-written act of walking to a checkout.
Before you criticise judges it helps to have even a rudimentary highschool level understanding of the law.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, yeah. That's why it wound up in court.
So what's new? (Score:2)
Ever seen an Amazon parcel?
Just wait until... (Score:2)
"Sell all of my stock! ;) "
Re: (Score:2)
I say anyone who buys or sells stock based on nothing more than a single instance of a single emojii gets whatever they have coming to them.
Meanwhile, out in reality, (Score:5, Insightful)
we grownups still communicate with words. It may sometimes be ambiguous, but it's way more concrete than trying to decipher what the three year olds mean with their drawings.
Re: (Score:2)
we grownups still communicate with words.
No you don't. 90% of communication between people is non-verbal. Subtle cues such as facial expressions provide critical context to words. Emojis were born out of this concept. Posting an emoji of a moon is no different than the action of pointing at the moon which itself is a form of communication.
Words are not in any way concrete. You can see constantly how they are misinterpreted right here in this very forum full of /s or ;-) tags to make sure that sarcasm actually comes across in ways that words fail t
Re: (Score:2)
Not really.
Non-verbal communication by facial expressions and body language are innate. And they are both very hard to simulate and people react very unfavorable if your body language is misleading or "wrong". Ask any autist out there.
Most of all, though, body language is almost exclusively involuntary. There are very, very few people who actually have that much control over their body that they can "lie" with it. Most people do not possess that level of self control.
Those non-verbal cues are of course miss
1st step (Score:2)
MS could quit COMPELLING them in Teams?
Right now, in Teams you cannot type (cloud), it translates that to the emoji of a cloud.
And you cannot turn that stupid shit off.
The only way you can type it is to type around it, eg ( cloud )
Re: (Score:3)
Right now, in Teams you cannot type (cloud), it translates that to the emoji of a cloud.
It does? I just typed the word cloud in our Teams at work and it came out as the word. There was no picture.
Perhaps there is a setting to turn that off.
Re: (Score:2)
Your reply didn't clarify whether or not you included the parentheses.
Emojis? Was this written by a boomer (Score:2)
That is so 2010. We are in a world of MS Teams. Not only are the emojis of 2024 animated, but Teams also includes GIFs right in the message screen as well as customisable stickers including a generator for all the most popular memes. It's right there for you to generate and use, right in your corporate chat environment.
I can't wait for the courts to start to argue what the expression on Bill Lumbergh's face actually means in the Office Space meme.