The "OK" hand gesture has become a hate symbol, according to the Anti-Defamation League, after white supremacists co-opted the sign in what initially began as a joke on the website 4chan.
Users of the website falsely claimed that the OK sign, made by touching the tips of the forefinger and thumb and leaving the other fingers spread out, is a symbol of white supremacy. The idea was to trick members of the media or liberals into overreacting to people using the gesture, but reports show that it has been adopted as a sign by white nationalists.
"At least some white supremacists seem to have abandoned the ironic or satiric intent behind the original trolling campaign and used the symbol as a sincere expression of white supremacy," the ADL wrote in its report.
Brenton Tarrant, the Australian white supremacist accused of murdering 51 people in New Zealand mosques in March, was seen making the hand gesture while in court shortly after his arrest.
The ADL also added several images to its list of hate symbols: the bowl haircut of Dylan Roof, who shot nine black churchgoers in South Carolina in 2015; the "Happy Merchant," an anti-Semitic stereotype of a Jewish man that is meant to depict greed; and the "Moon Man," a version of an old McDonald's commercial character that white supremacists use in videos with racist rapping. The ADL also added the slogan "Diversity = White Genocide," to its list.
"These are the latest calling cards of hate," Mark Pitcavage, Senior Fellow in ADL's Center on Extremism, told CNN. "We pay special attention to those symbols that exhibit staying power as well as those that move from online usage into the real world."
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