Also consider that revealing the abuse can be life threatening to the victim. How certain can you really be you’re not being overheard? And is even a 1% chance worth your life?
As you said:
> And is even a 1% chance worth your life?
Is the 1% chance that the abuser sees and understands the symbol worth your life?
https://reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/qeq0fq/the_m...
Edit: reading some of the comments in the Reddit thread, as the article states, this was started in Canada during the COVID lockdown, so the likely scenario there is that you may give the signal out during work/while video chatting with a friend/relative while the abuser is unobservant but within hearing distance.
To your point, this still seems unlikely, but if someone is in an abusive relationship but is still working during lockdowns, I suppose it’s still one way to signal for help.
It just seems like an extremely dangerous thing to do. If someone sees you doing some weird gesture with your hands, their first impulse may just be to blurt out "what are you doing with your hands?", which would in this case draw the abuser's attention.
It seems way more straightforward to type out in that scenario explicitly that you are in danger.
(a) you can disguise the action as making a fist then said fist goes on to rub your nose, for instance.
(b) your chin can rest on the back of your hand in position (1). Then it occasionally switches to (2). You can keep doing this while pretending to be listening thoroughly, like it's some unconscious gesture.
(c) you can do this gesture two or three times in a row disguised as a hello or goodbye wave.
The important observation here is, even if your abuser recognizes what you are doing, they are unlikely to prevent you from doing this immediately. Otherwise if they do then it's just explicit confirmation that you are indeed being abused. That situation is no good for them, if they are trying to hide the fact.
The second point is that you maintain plausible deniability even if your abuser recognizes the sign. Of course it's not foolproof but it's easier to sell this as casual gestures as opposed to explicitly telling the video chat of your situation. If your abuser confronts you about it (if they even catch you doing it), it's easier to defuse the situation and less likely to end up in another altercation.