Can an emoji be a lie? The links between emoji meaning, commitment, and lying

Abstract

Can an emoji be a lie? Recent research has emphasized the importance of commitment in theories of lying, proposing that a speaker will only have lied if they are committed to the false content in their utterance. Similar research has proposed expanding the possibilities of the modalities of lying, suggesting a message-sender can lie if they send false pictorial content, so long as they are committed to that content. This study utilizes two experiments to explore the relationship between emoji, commitment, and lying. Experiment 1 finds that speakers can be committed to emoji meanings, but not necessarily for every emoji; emoji with widely-acknowledged, salient meanings constitute significantly higher commitment than emoji with less meaning agreement. Experiment 2 similarly finds that an emoji can be a lie, dependent upon the extent to which the speaker is committed to the emoji's meaning.