My son just sent me a text with a crying face emoji and something about sliced raw onions. No harm in that. But be careful with those emojis; one can send you to prison.
A few years ago, I read about someone who sent a text message to a person with whom he was having an argument. In the text, the sender wrote something like, “I’ll get you,” followed by an emoji of a little bomb. That little bomb was interpreted to be a death threat and the sender ended up a convict.
I know that we’ve developed a shorthand way of using text messages and that many even use a shorthand way of communicating in emails.
I’ve even been told that I need to understand that text messages are not supposed to be formal.
But the problem is that the formality of evidence used against you is the same whether it’s a text message, an email, or a handwritten note scribbled on the back of a napkin – it doesn’t make any difference.
Be very careful about what you put in any recorded message and how it might be interpreted.
Assume that everything you communicate electronically is discoverable because it is. In fact, it’s more easily discoverable than a piece of paper. Paper can be lost. But that email or text or video is going to be recoverable from somewhere, somehow.
Also, be careful with the use of humor in electronic messages. I tend to think I’m funny (at least when I listen to my own jokes) but I know that when I try to be funny in an email, the recipient usually doesn’t get it.
The bottom line is that in connection with any transaction, business or personal, electronic messages are indelibly retrievable, they’re fixed in time.
So be careful of what you send.
And, as I’m constantly reminded by my own gaffes, if you use Siri, or Cortana or another virtual assistant to dictate your messages, read them before you send them: Make sure your assistant isn’t a double agent working for the other side.
