ryanyb wrote:PolyesterHomes wrote:Okay.
How do I know if a phrase I'm going to say is a racist dogwhistle? I've seen movements like the Alt right coopt or subvert existing phrases or symbols for their cause. I've also seen then deliberately spread rumors about something being a dog whistle in order to troll with people. I've also seen memes that originated in a racist context be used in ways divorced of any obvious racism to the point where I genuinely wouldnt know they came from that context unless somebody told me.
I believe this post and change in rules is a good idea. I dont want to make people uncomfortable about their race, identity, orientation, etc.
Honestly, you really can't.
Basically, the intent here is that if there's something we know about, we're going to ask that it's not used. Like, we're not banning pepe's, despite the fact it's a recognized hate symbol by the ADF because of the fact that it's one of the favorite meme format for hate-groups and has been historically used to mask stuff. I think it's a bit dense to blanket ban stuff like that because, yes, it is a part of internet culture. But like, maybe don't go around using it in the ways it was used in /r/FrenZone, and maybe don't post pepe's that have been re-done to clearly stereotype and poke fun at certain groups. Like, no, the twitch emote PepeD is not a dogwhistle.
We're giving benefit of the doubt on the vast majority of this stuff. We're not about to start waving the ban hammer around because something might actually be a super obscure dogwhistle that none of us have heard of. But, for example, if someone starts doing scumreads by indicating scum with an (((echo))), then you're going to be asked to cut it out.
Edit:
A pretty good rule of thumb probably is if there's a wikipedia page on that manner of speech / symbol / whatever is that primarily talks about how it's a hate symbol, maybe don't.
this was the first result when i googled adf
can't believe we're listening to boomers as our master plan smh