jainbee

granted. however, WP has terms of service that read:

Responsibility of Contributors. If you operate a blog, comment on a blog, post material to the Website, post links on the Website, or otherwise make (or allow any third party to make) material available by means of the Website (any such material, “Content”), You are entirely responsible for the content of, and any harm resulting from, that Content. That is the case regardless of whether the Content in question constitutes text, graphics, an audio file, or computer software. By making Content available, you represent and warrant that:
the downloading, copying and use of the Content will not infringe the proprietary rights, including but not limited to the copyright, patent, trademark or trade secret rights, of any third party;

when i buy a pen, the manufacturer doesn’t make me sign terms of service for using that pen.
someone is violating WP’s terms of service. what action does WP take when that happens?

okay, figured it out.

i deactivated WP-Grins and installed Custom SMileys. works fine.