The Anti-Defamation League has added the “OK” hand gesture, a mass killer’s bowl-style haircut, and an anthropomorphic moon wearing sunglasses to its online database of hate symbols. They are part of the 36 additions to the Jewish civil-rights group’s listing of almost 200 symbols used by white supremacists and far-right extremists. Many of the icons started out on message boards such as 4chan, 8chan, and Reddit before migrating to more mainstream platforms like Facebook and Twitter. “Even as extremists continue to use symbols that may be years or decades old, they regularly create new symbols, memes, and slogans to express their hateful sentiments,” Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement.
The bowl cut has became a symbol of hate as the hairstyle worn by Dylann Roof, who shot and killed nine black people in a church in Charleston in 2015. The Moon Man is a cartoon from a McDonald’s advertisement during the 1980s that became a symbol for rap songs with racist and violent lyrics. A 4chan trolling campaign said that the OK symbol formed the letters “W″ and “P″ to mean “white power.” Most recently, Brenton Tarrant, the suspect in the killing of 51 people at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March, flashed the “OK” symbol at a court appearance.
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