Nowadays sharing emoji with friends or family has become very popular in our day to day life. There are many emoji in WhatsApp to express our feeling like hey, yo, cool, thumbs up and also various smiling faces, disgust, anger or sadness emoji. However, there is also a ‘Middle Finger’ emoji which many people find offensive.
An advocate on Tuesday sent a legal notice to WhatsApp asking it to remove the Middle Finger emoji within 15 days from the very popular messaging app WhatsApp. Gurmeet Singh, who practices as a lawyer in city courts in New Delhi explain that showing Middle Finger is not illegal but an obscene and lewd gesture with an offense in India. Also, a copy of the same legal notice has been sent to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.
Gurmeet Singh stated in his notice, “As per the Indian Penal Code Sections 354 and 509, it is an offense to show obscene, lewd, offensive gestures to females. Use of a lewd, offensive, obscene gesture by anyone is hereby illegal also as aforesaid. As per section 6 of the Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act, 1994 showing of the middle finger is also an offense in Ireland.”
Emoji is a small image or icon which is used to express an idea or emotion of a people. The notice also said, “by offering the use of middle finger emoji in your WhatsApp app, it is directly supporting the use of offensive, lewd, obscene gesture.”
Gurmeet Singh requested to remove the Middle Finger emoji or character from WhatsApp within 15 days from the date of the present legal notice. If the WhatsApp fails to remove this Middle Finger emoji then he is threatening to file civil or criminal cases.
However, WhatsApp said in its e-mail response that they are not in the mood to change its current list of emoji. Let us know your feedback in our comment section below, does the ‘Middle Finger’ Emoji removed from WhatsApp or not.
Source: LiveLaw
Article by Siddhant Shetge. The post Legal Notice To WhatsApp To Remove ‘Middle Finger’ Emoji appeared first on Above Android.