Because of their varying meanings between different generations of Chinese, the use of certain emoticons online is causing confusion, and sometimes even worse, Zhou Wenting reports in Shanghai.

Instant messaging app WeChat has been popular in China for more than a decade, but for some users, it is not until recently that they have realized that people may apply a different meaning to some emojis and their inappropriate use may inadvertently cause offense.

Li Lian, a 32-year-old Shanghai resident, recently helped her mother solve a digital problem on the phone and the mother sent her a "smile" emoji. Li pointed out to her mother that using the emoji with others may trigger a misunderstanding.

The mother Huo Ying was confused at first. She asked her daughter to explain what was wrong.

"This emoji is often used as an equivalent of 'no comment' nowadays. Or it suggests a cold smile," Li wrote to her mother.

"If my daughter didn't point this out to me, I would never have realized that some people would view the emoji like that," says Huo, 64, a retired human resources specialist.

"But when I shared this information to friends of my age, they disagreed, and I think they'll just keep using the emojis based on their understanding," she says.

Zhao Lu from Dalian, Liaoning province, says she also received a "smile" emoji from her father on WeChat recently. The 28-year-old says she asked her father whether he understood the emoji in the "right "way.

"My father, who is 56, told me that he saw it as a sincere smile with happy eyes," she says.

Zhao says she laughed and told her father that it showed the wide generation gap between them. She then sent her father several other emojis that she and her peers often use to express their happiness, pleasure and friendliness, when they see something interesting or funny.

"I told my father we use the particular emoji he sent me to say something like 'no comment' or when we have to tolerate somebody or something we don't want out of politeness. My father said that he accepted my explanation," she says.

A survey conducted by domestic recruitment portal 51 Job showed that the "smile" face both Li and Zhao referred to was also the emoji least liked by people in the workplace.

More than half of the poll respondents said they liked to receive the "smile" face the least, followed by the embarrassed face and the face with a hand wiping sweat of its brow, as all of them have negative connotations or indicate refusal, according to the survey results published in July 2022.

In contrast, a smiling emoji showing its teeth is the most used on WeChat. It is used for tens of billions of times a year by the more than 1 billion active WeChat users, according to the app's annual reports. Users say the emoji depicts a very positive attitude and politeness, with many describing it as lovely and friendly.

"People of different age groups and from different backgrounds may easily develop different understandings of emoticons. There is never a unified standard in their interpretation," says Cao Lingxiang, a lawyer in Beijing.

She says emoticons are actually a part of conversations online, and differences in understanding do not exist in the emoticons alone, but also in other phrases and expressions, especially the newer ones.

"Although individuals may have different understanding toward the same emoticons, it will be OK if they understand each other and know that the other party is being polite instead of offensive," says Cao, a partner at Zhong Yin Law Firm in Beijing.

Legal disputes

However, for some, inadvertently inappropriate use of emojis has landed them in hot water legally.

Public court records show that emojis have been entered as legal evidence in around 160 lawsuits all over the country since 2018. The number of such lawsuits started off in single digits, but increased to 66 and 61 cases in 2020 and 2021, respectively.

A 28-year-old woman, surnamed Liu, in Shanghai was dismissed from work and became involved in a lawsuit because of the use of a "smile" emoji, according to the Shanghai No 2 Intermediate People's Court.

One day last year, Liu, a staff member at an extracurricular education institution, was discussing work issues in a WeChat group with her colleagues. After a colleague sent her the emoji, which in Liu's eyes indicated discontent and ridicule, she was furious.

She poured out her anger at message from her colleague in the WeChat group and sent four "smile "emojis, twice, followed with a message, saying, "Don't send the 'death smile' to me. It's not only you who can send the 'death smile'."

To end the quarrel, Liu's employer chose to dismiss her, which made her even more angry, so she decided to sue the company.

During the court hearing in July, Liu said her textual altercation with the colleague began only after she was texted the "death smile", which she saw a taunting insult.

Judge Qiao Beihua, who presided over the case, was born in the 1960s. After seeing the smile emoji, she was confused as to why Liu was so enraged by it.

"I asked Liu if the way she perceived the emoji was the only way in which it could be comprehended," says Qiao.

The court later announced that, in the minds of many people, it is just a smile. Liu eventually accepted mediation and agreed to terminate the work contract with the company.

In June, a court in Jiangxi province reported that a man faced a lawsuit because of the use of an emoji on WeChat.

A man owed money amounting to nearly 170,000 yuan ($23,000). The creditor, surnamed Guo, reached out to the debtor's father on WeChat in December asking him to become the guarantor of the son's debt. He replied with an "OK" emoji.

The Dingnan County Court in Ganzhou, Jiangxi, determined that, in responding as he did, the father had agreed to be the guarantor and ordered him to pay Guo, as there is no ambiguity in the meaning of that particular emoticon.

Similarly, in a housing lease dispute in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, last year, an emoji used by the tenant led the court to believe that he agreed with a rent increase.

As seen in their WeChat records, the landlord said their would be a rise in the rent, and the tenant did not say anything about a negotiation or express that he wanted to move out. He only replied with a "sun" emoticon.

The Jiangsu Provincial High Court reminded the public that, in order to avoid unnecessary misunderstandings and disputes, people should express themselves clearly in online text-based communications, and only use emoticons that are not ambiguous when discussing important topics, particularly involving personal interests.

"The public shall also comply with ethical standards, including using emoticons in good faith, in online conversations," the court said in an article on its WeChat feed in June.

"If emoticons are used indiscriminately to insult, defame or threaten others, it may constitute an infringement of the reputational rights of others, and the individual will bear any corresponding legal responsibility. If the circumstances are serious, the behavior may even constitute defamation and the individual shall face criminal punishment," it said.

Pang Jiulin, a lawyer at Beijing Chunlin Law Firm, says that as some emojis have been used by people online for years, their connotations, as widely agreed among younger users, may change over time.

"So people need to pay attention to the occasion, and consider their proximity and closeness to the individuals they are speaking to when using such emojis," says Pang.

"However, emoticons can sometimes liven up the conversation, and people should be encouraged to use them, but do so with kindness," he says.

Yang Zhanzhu contributed to this story.