Latest news with #Unicode
Eyewitness News
16 hours ago
- Politics
- Eyewitness News
Mbenenge tribunal: Use of emojis and their meaning take centre stage
JOHANNESBURG - Evidence leader in the judicial conduct tribunal investigating allegations of sexual harassment against Eastern Cape Judge President, Selby Mbenenge, has asserted that it's incorrect to suggest that the top judge and high court secretary, Andiswa Mengo, always used emojis with the intention to convey the standardised meaning attached to them. Advocate Salome Scheepers began with her cross-examination of information communications technology (ICT) expert, Dr Vincent Mello, before the fact-finding body in Sandton, Johannesburg. Mello is the second witness to be called in defence of the senior judge in the misconduct probe against him after Mengo accused him of making unwanted sexual advances towards her between 2021 and 2022, mostly on the social media platform WhatsApp. However, Mbenenge said he understood Mengo's usage of the emoji with the monkey covering its eyes to be flirtatious. But Scheepers said the meaning attached to it in the Unicode data laboratory and Emojipedia is different. 'Ms Mengo informed me that she was going to be in East London and I asked her if we could be intimate. Her response was to quote a biblical verse, but at the same time attached two emojis depicting a monkey closing its eyes with its hands, which I understood to be flirtatious.' 'Nowhere in Unicode or in Emojipedia, the meaning flirtatious is attached to this emoji. Is that correct?' Replied Mello: 'Yes.'
Daily Maverick
a day ago
- Daily Maverick
Mbenenge tribunal — expert explains emoji code origin, but not human interpretation
The alternative and deeper meanings humans attribute to emojis were explored at the Judicial Conduct Tribunal hearing for Eastern Cape Judge President Selby Mbenenge on Thursday. When forensic, legal and linguistic expert Dr Zakeera Docrat testified at the Judicial Conduct Tribunal of Eastern Cape Judge President Selby Mbenenge in May, her qualifications – a BA Hons (cum laude), a LLB MA (cum laude) and a PHD from Rhodes – were vigorously interrogated by Mbenenge's legal team. At stake that day was the interpretation of emojis sent between Mbenenge and Andiswa Mengo, a court secretary, in a series of messages between June 2021 and November 2022. The 64-year-old Mbenenge has not denied the 'relationship' with Mengo and has remained insistent it was consensual. Tribunal president, retired Judge Bernard Ngoepe, has opened a new frontier during this landmark inquisitorial process, including the surgical excavation of the semiotics (meaning) of emojis used by both parties in this matter. In September 2023, a three-judge panel of the Judicial Conduct Committee (JCC) ruled that there was a prima facie case to be made of gross misconduct against Mbenenge, which, if confirmed, could lead to impeachment. Mengo, 41, lodged the complaint with the JSC in January 2o23. Mbenenge was placed on special leave. The tribunal investigation began in January this year. The communications between the two consisted of WhatsApps using emojis, photographs (some of which were deleted), as well as communication in isiXhosa. When is a peach a peach? When is a peach a peach and an eggplant an eggplant? What does the ear with the hearing aid mean, or the dripping syringe? Back in May, advocate Muzi Sikhakhane, representing Mbenenge, seemed surprised to learn late into her expert testimony that Docrat spoke isiXhosa fluently and was thus able to read and understand the messages she was asked to testify on. Sikhakhane had told Docrat that his team planned to bring their own expert. And so on Wednesday, Dr Vincent Mello, who has a doctorate from Unisa and is a member of the Unicode Consortium, which aims to standardise emoji coding, testified. He said he was an 'independent' operator who worked for various companies, which he declined to name. Unicode, Mello told the tribunal, is what enables a device to select from around 3,600 emojis, and their code, for messaging platforms to facilitate quicker communication. How deep is your love? If Docrat's evidence to the tribunal was 3D in depth, scope and nature, Mello's expertise was code-deep, bottom floor – looking at the architecture that holds the code. Docrat had testified that Mbenenge's use of a banana, peach, eggplant and dripping syringe emojis had 'sexual connotations' and had indicated that he had wanted to be intimate with her. 'This was not a discussion about vegetables,' she replied at some point, concerning the peaches and eggplants. Docrat testified that Mbenenge's advances were, in her opinion, unwanted, and Mengo's responses – often featuring 'hysterical laughing' and 'embarrassed monkey' emojis – were because she did not know how else to react, as he was her boss. Mechanical code Mello methodically and mechanically went through the evidence he had prepared, addressing the technological architectural code involved. He informed the tribunal that he also used Emojipedia as a resource. 'When you type the word 'running', for instance, you will be given the option of choosing an emoji of someone depicted as running,' he said. Later, during cross-examination by evidence leader advocate Salomé Scheepers, Mello was asked to do exactly this on a phone other than his own. When the emoji failed to reflect, he agreed that not all applications or versions allowed for this. He said he had observed the use of emojis on 'approximately' 189 occasions in this matter, including 'rolling on the floor laughing', the 'see no evil monkey', the 'winking face', 'the thinking face', 'the flushed face', 'winking face with tongue', 'squinting face with tongue', 'eyes', 'folded arms', 'raising hands', 'crossed fingers', 'face palm', 'smiling face with halo'… on and on he went, counting each time Mbenenge or Mengo used one. He said Mbenenge had used emojis 97 times while Mengo had done so 69 times. When asked about the peach and the eggplant, which he had not yet highlighted, he replied, 'The peach would be the bum and the eggplant the male private part.' This kind of talk is mild considering some the descriptions that have been put before the tribunal, including that Mbenenge had allegedly also pointed to his erect penis in his trousers on one occasion, allegedly saying, 'You want to suck it?' Mello agreed that he could not testify on the deeper meaning people attached to standardised emojis and that he did not have any forensic legal linguistic expertise to do so. He also acknowledged that he had not published any research that had been peer-reviewed, that anyone could join the Emoji Consortium, and all they had to do was pay a membership fee. He also told the tribunal that he conducted his research out of interest in this bold new technological frontier.
IOL News
2 days ago
- IOL News
Judge President Selby Mbenenge's emoji evidence scrutinised in sexual harassment tribunal
Dr Vincent Mello an expert in Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) specialising in Research and Information Science, gave evidence relating to the use of emojis. Image: Supplied / Judicial Conduct Tribunal Sexual harassment accused Judge President Selby Mbenenge's legal counsel at the Judicial Conduct Tribunal put their own emoji expert witness on the stand on Thursday where he gave evidence relating to Whatsapp exchanges between JP Mbenenge and complainant Andiswa Mengo. On Thursday morning, Dr Vincent Mello an expert in Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) specialising in Research and Information Science gave evidence relating to the use of emojis as it is used in Unicode (a system for encoding virtually all characters used in computers, ensuring consistent representation across different platforms and languages) globally. Giving testimony on Thursday, Dr Mello gave a detailed breakdown of the amount of times certain emojis were used between both parties on the WhatsApp application, adding that cumulatively, emojis were used approximately 189 times between JP Mbenenge and Mengo. It was Dr Mello's evidence that, according to Emojipedia, the peach represents 'bums', and the eggplant emoji represents the 'male private part'. It was Mengo's allegation that both emojis, including a peeled banana, was sent to her by the JP Mbenenge via WhatsApp chat but he then deleted the messages, not before she managed to take screenshots of the messages. Further to a line of questioning, by advocate Muzi Sikhakhane for JP Mbenenge, Dr Mello was probed about a picture depicting a male private part, allegedly also sent by JP Mbenenge to Mengo and whether it could be ascertained who sent the message. Dr Vincent Mello gave a detailed breakdown of the amount of times certain emojis were used between both parties on the WhatsApp application, adding that cumulatively, emojis were used approximately 189 times between JP Selby Mbenenge and sexual harassment complainant Andiswa Mengo. Image: Supplied / Judicial Conduct Tribunal Dr Mello said it could not be ascertained by whom the message was sent. Dr Mello, probed about whether the parties had used the emojis in accordance with the ascribed Unicode, said: 'It is my opinion that with a good number of accuracy they are associated with that. There are two that I want to make mention of. The peach and the eggplant…when you go to Emojipedia, it does also make reference to say that a peach would generally represent the bums and the eggplant, the male private part.' Dr Mello referenced an Instagram campaign during 2015 to have the eggplant emoji banned in that associated usage. Previously the Tribunal heard evidence from Dr Zakeera Docrat, a forensic and legal linguist and researcher, who confirmed that the context in which emojis were sent to Mengo by JP Mbenenge depicted sexual acts.
The Hindu
2 days ago
- Business
- The Hindu
India now sole govt. with vote in emoji, text standards body Unicode Consortium
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) rejoined the Unicode Consortium as a Supporting Member this year, becoming one of just two government members with a vote on the body. The consortium and its technical body are in charge of determining the text and emojis that are standard across the internet, and have played a major role in ensuring that languages around the world, including Indian languages, are recognised by computer systems globally. The IT Ministry was previously a member from 2000 to 2019, and then for one year in 2021. The IT Ministry has not issued any statement announcing its membership, which has been listed on the consortium's website as the 'Government of India', with a link to MeitY's website. The membership, which allows the Indian government a half vote in the technical committee's decision making — and a seat at the table at its meetings, mostly held in the U.S. and online — represents an annual $20,000 commitment, or about ₹17 lakh. The IT Ministry has been a member of the consortium as a part of the decades-old Technology Development for Indian Languages (TDIL) initiative, which sought to promote, at first, an Indian alternative to ASCII, the pre-Unicode limited character set, and later on cooperated with efforts to internationalise Indian scripts by including them in Unicode. In 2023, The Hindu reported on how the Tamil Virtual Academy, an e-learning institute that operates autonomously under Tamil Nadu's Information Technology and Digital Services Department, had run up over $200,000 in membership fees over more than a decade, but did not attend a single meeting, or engage meaningfully with the body beyond 2016, while proprietary non-Unicode typefaces continued to be used across the State government's arms. The Tamil Virtual Academy remains a member, the only other Supporting Member globally apart from the IT Ministry. Other State governments, like Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, have briefly held memberships, but discontinued them. The IT Ministry was not present at the latest series of meetings of the Unicode Technical Committee, held from April 22–24.
Forbes
13-06-2025
- Forbes
Do Not Click These Notifications On Your Phone
More links you cannot click. A surprise warning for Android users heading into the weekend. It turns out on-screen notification links for even the most popular apps on your phone can be hijacked by attackers and used to redirect you to malicious websites or even to malware. Android Authority picked up the security warning from security researcher Gabriele Digregorio, and warns 'until Google issues a fix, it's safest to avoid using the 'Open link' button' within on-screen notifications, 'and open links manually in the app.' In his blog post, Digregorio explains that 'Android notifications do not properly handle some Unicode characters, leading to inconsistencies between what is displayed and what is used by the automatic 'Open Link' suggestions. This may trick users into opening a different link from the one shown in the notification.' FBI Confirms iPhone And Android Warning—Delete All These Texts That's dangerous, because the flaw 'can be exploited for phishing or to trigger app links and deep links.' Per Android Authority, even though 'Google was notified about the bug in March, [it] hasn't patched it yet.' The disclosure confirms that 'the issue still affects phones running Android 14, 15, and 16, including the Pixel 9 Pro.' 'If you regularly use an Android device,' Digregorio says, 'you may have noticed that notifications often include suggestions based on their content. This is particularly common — and useful — when the notifications come from messaging apps, where the system automatically suggests actions such as quick replies or opening a link.' Apple Warns Protesters With Stolen iPhones — You Are Being Tracked The blog post demonstrates that while 'developers do not explicitly implement this feature,' which is 'provided automatically by Android's notification system,' it affected apps including 'WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram, Discord and Slack.' The notification itself is fine, it's the embedded link that's open to exploitation. As Android Authority explains, 'the system might show you a link to but when you tap 'Open link', it subtly takes you to instead.' This is because 'an invisible character was used to split the word into two.' Even though 'Android displayed the full address,' only was used 'as the actual link.' It's tricky to avoid tapping notification links, but if it's an unexpected link, I would agree with Android Authority and recommend opening the app itself and going directly to the source. This will vey likely be fixed now that it's in the public domain and open to exploitation. I have reached out to Google to confirm.
