Call of Duty remove ‘OK’ symbol from Modern Warfare, Warzone

An iconic video game has quietly removed a controversial symbol co-opted by white supremacist groups being used in its game.

Ionic video game franchise Call of Duty has quietly removed a once innocuous symbol that has supposedly been co-opted by white supremacists and far-right extremist groups that Australia’s domestic spy organisation warns are a threat to public safety.

Call of Duty developers Infinity Ward quietly removed the “OK” symbol made by forming a circle with your thumb and index finger Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and its free-to-play Warzone battle royale title.

RELATED: ‘Homeless’ teen to famous streamer

A gamer performs a trickshot to end a round in Call of Duty. Picture: Reddit

The symbol was often used by players as a kind of “trickshot” by showing it with one hand and firing their gun with the other, as well as a celebration for scoring the final kill of a game that would then be shown to other players.

The symbol was quietly removed in a recent update.

Reaction on social media has largely condemned the change.

Call of Duty has quietly removed all use of the OK symbol bringing it in line with Activision-Blizzard's policy of it being banned from their esports broadcasts. This type of performative wokeness is so stupid at this point. How does a hoax you know is a hoax "work?" pic.twitter.com/n7pRU0SiqB

— Richard Lewis (@RLewisReports) July 4, 2020

I just don’t see how the “ok” symbol 👌🏻 is a gesture of white power and got removed from call of duty @InfinityWard @Activision @CallofDuty

— DJ Erickson (@djerickson19) July 5, 2020

While the symbol was once used to denote an “OK” sentiment and is available as an emoji on both Apple and Andorid phones, in recent years it’s believed to have been co-opted by white supremacist groups as a dog whistle.

The co-opting of symbols is not a new phenomenon, for instance the Swastika symbol now associated with Nazism was previously used by Hindus and Buddhists as a symbol of wellbeing.

The one-finger salute used by ISIS members was also co-opted from the concept of the Tawhid in Islam, but in the case of fundamentalist ISIS it’s been called “the jihadi equivalent of a gang sign”.

The powerful thing about co-opted symbols is that their signals can be denied or discredited and only understood by their intended audience.

ASIO director-general of security Mike Burgess said the agency has identified far right extremism as a growing threat earlier this year. Picture: Sean Davey

RELATED: Amazon’s embarrassing game fail

According to the Anti-Defamation League, set up in 1913 “to stop the defamation of the Jewish people, and to secure justice and fair treatment to all”, use of the symbol “in most contexts is entirely innocuous and harmless”, but beginning in 2017 an online hoax made the symbol acquire “a new and different significance”.

Members of controversial message board 4chan (which has acted as an incubator for extremism, though to a lesser degree than other sites like 8chan and Gab) begun falsely promoting the gesture as a hate symbol.

The reason was seemingly “to own the libs” by tricking them into labelling a once innocuous symbol as a signifier of white power.

“The hoaxers hoped that the media and liberals would overreact by condemning a common image as white supremacist,” the ADL notes (and before you race to the comments section to say that’s what is happening here: read to the end of the article).

“By 2019, at least some white supremacists seem to have abandoned the ironic or satirical intent behind the original trolling campaign and used the symbol as a sincere expression of white supremacy,” the ADL notes, specifically naming the Australian-born terrorist who livestreamed himself killing 51 people as they prayed at mosques in Christchurch on a Friday afternoon in March of last year as an example.

He flashed the symbol while handcuffed at a court appearance following the attack.

The ADL said his crimes and manifesto were contextual evidence of the shooter being a white supremacist. Picture: Mark Mitchell / AFP

The ADL notes that while the symbol has been co-opted, it has innocuous meanings and can also be mistaken as referencing “the circle game”, where you trick someone into looking at a circle like gesture made below the waist and mete out some form of punishment to the victim.

It can also be confused with a symbol used by the anti-government Three Percenter movement, which the ADL notes contains members who are “right-wing extremists, but are not typically white supremacists”.

The ADL said that it shouldn’t be assumed someone is using the symbol for nefarious reasons “unless other contextual evidence exists to support the contention”.

Other contextual evidence includes things like the Facebook page of a Victorian police officer caught on camera making the symbol at protesters last year, which he used to post a number of alt-right memes that were “under no circumstances reflective of [our] values” according to Victoria Police.

The officer maintained he was asking protesters if they were alright, but "other contextual evidence" suggested that was not the case. Picture: Kim Stern

The officer maintained he was simply making an innocuous gesture.

A police officer in NSW was also photographed showing the symbol several months after the Victorian officer garnered national media attention, but NSW Police said he was similarly making an innocuous “OK” symbol.

They’re yet to answer repeated questioning over what training has been given to NSW Police over the use of the symbol or whether they’ve been instructed not to use it due to its association with groups that ASIO has identified as a threat to national security, citing “operational” reasons.

A NSW Police officer was filmed making the same gesture at protesters months later and offered a similar explanation.

ASIO director-general of security Mike Burgess said at an annual threat assessment address in February that violent Islamist fundamentalism was the agency’s top priority, but the threat of far-right extremism is growing.

“In suburbs around Australia, small cells regularly meet to salute Nazi flags, inspect weapons, train in combat and share their hateful ideology,” Mr Burgess said.

The Lowy Institute think tank has said the two incidents involving officers show a need for police and other security services to investigate whether there is a problem with white supremacy in their ranks.