The U.S. District Court judge for the Southern District of New York said emojis like “rocket,” “money bag” and “stock chart” have a clear meaning and function as a financial recommendation. This means that the people who use them can be held liable for the possible loss of reader funds.
The NBA Top Shot NFT project, owned by Dapper Labs, is accused of misleading users. According to the judge, this was achieved by posting on Twitter promising a profit on the purchase of tokens.
The defendant’s defense tried to prove in court that the word “profit” was not used in the project’s postings, which means that the law was not technically violated. Previously, influencers in the crypto community have repeatedly used rocket emojis and stock charts in their posts to no avail, but the Dapper Labs case took an unexpected direction.
Judge Víctor Marrero said that the emoji used by the NBA Top Shot account have a clear meaning and contain a direct allusion to the profit from investments in the NFT project. Therefore, Dapper Labs will have to face all the legal consequences of giving out financial recommendations to its subscribers.
The news of the judge’s decision was received negatively by the crypto community. Users began to complain en masse on Twitter that they now “have to think twice before putting emoji.” The chief consultant of the NFT Enjin platform, Oscar Franklin Tan, went so far as to say that the Dapper Labs precedent is a direct threat to freedom of expression.
Author:
Grigory Shcheglov
Source: RB
I am a professional journalist and content creator with extensive experience writing for news websites. I currently work as an author at Gadget Onus, where I specialize in covering hot news topics. My written pieces have been published on some of the biggest media outlets around the world, including The Guardian and BBC News.
