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Comment by roenxi | Hacker News Reader

Having researched the issue carefully [0] I would suggest there is an alternative symbolic interpretation. One that goes something like "our opponents believe anything they read on the internet".

Even if it is used extensively as a political symbol, it doesn't represent white power. It represents a political sub-group disrespecting their opposition for being gullible.

Insofar as it even could represent white power - white power to do what? Have political opinions? It isn't seriously associated with anything heinous.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK_(gesture)#White_power_symbo...

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My take is that Poe's Law is bidirectional. You can't tell irony from extremism, nor extremism from irony.

It might have started as an ironic joke, but if it gets adopted earnestly by actual white supremacists (see the Christchurch shooter using it in court), then in some contexts it can be interpreted as a genuine symbol of white supremacy.

Mr Christchurch Shooter doesn't have that much power. If he wrapped himself in a rainbow flag, it doesn't mean people should stop using rainbow flags. Ditto him using a thumbs up gesture or an OK handsign. His use or disuse of symbol sin his crime is distasteful, but unimportant.

If he thought he could get people to stop using Islamic symbols by displaying them, he would have been festooned with them.

So, you're saying it either means "white power" or "we're trolling people to think we mean 'white power'"?

As for white power not being associated with anything heinous, yeah "Hail victory" also sounds good. Who doesn't want victory?

The whole thing was started as a deliberate meme by /pol/ to take an innocent, commonly used hand signal and make the left treat it as a white supremacist dogwhistle. So it can mean anything ranging from "ok" to "this will make the libs angry" to "I am an actual nazi among like minded friends". Which one it is must be discerned from context, meaning that the symbol itself is largely meaningless.

Assuming that is true, they've succeeded in making it too toxic to use. Congrats, I guess?

Are you going to flash a hand signal that might derail your career if someone "misinterprets the context"?

I use the symbol to help identify people who believe anything they read on the Internet.

I don’t think I’ve used this symbol since I was a kid to mean “ok,” and I certainly won’t use it now due to potential association.

But it is nice to be able to easily tell if someone is either stupid or duplicitous by reading them talk about this symbol always meaning white power.

I’m sure if I went looking on nazi sites I would see it used in hate, but every story I’ve read about it has been a waste of time. I only see a few come through threads like this but when I read the link it’s usually someone trolling or ambiguous.

People in this thread must know what plausible deniability is.

When someone is standing next to Steve Bannon posing intentionally with a symbol that could refer to white supremacy, being able to laugh it off as "haha, I just meant OK" gains them the benefits of deniability. (But not very plausible, I think)

People use it precisely for this reason - because it identifies them as a white supremacy sympathiser without being actionable: they keep a trolling or ambiguity defence in their back pocket, wherever that is needed.

Personally, I don't care if someone is elaborately trolling or being ironic by displaying a swastika. They are still willing to display a swastika.

White supremacists - Nazis, the KKK, Evropa - love Trump. They use this symbol. Who cares whether someone is "ironically" using a symbol indicating their support for that cause or sincerely?

Except using as 'this will make libs crazy' means the speaker is still intentionally and loudly embracing racism & racists, even if not their primary aim. So it is a symbol of two forms of racism: direct and supporting. Important to not give racists a free pass just because they are clever, delusional, or are a part of some popular political coalition.

The sedition just happened, and it was because of exactly this kind of manipulative messaging by the same exact people. Breitbart's former editor Bannon even came out of hiding for helping with the riot's speeches and got a pardon in return. I'm hoping that will have been the last straw for most people for tolerating racist double talk and those promoting it.

Seems like you should do some more research

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