There are, indeed, racist online communities that thrive off of bigotry, hatred, and other social ills – and now they have employed code words to avoid censorship online.
They use an array of seemingly innocent words and phrases to substitute offensive words. Some of these substitute words include “yahoo” to identify people of Mexican descent, “skittle” for Arabic people, “butterfly” for gay men, and “car salesman” for liberals and Democrats, among others.
There are more substitute words – but they don’t deserve publication.
https://twitter.com/AGoldmund/status/782190492695924736
https://twitter.com/WhiteGuy__1488/status/781900865275764736?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://twitter.com/Leroy_Jenkems/status/780580769605431296
https://twitter.com/PunchyMcgregor/status/781706565904502784
These terms seem to be particularly popular with the infamous basket of deplorables –er… umm… I mean staunch Trump supporters.
It is expected that the alt-right racists are spearheading this movement, as some of the Twitter accounts have used hashtags associated with the “alternative right” – a revolting white supremacist group that has taken refuge in the Republican Party.
Where Did These Code Words Come from?
It seems like these words came as a response to Google’s Jigsaw program, a type of artificial intelligence that was made to help combat online harassment.
This program seemed to inspire the Internet’s sewer – better known as 4chan. Different message boards showed that “Operation Google” was underway, with users trying to come up with different ways to play Google’s attempt to reel in online bullying.
The thought process was that Google may be able to pick up derogatory terms and reprimand the offender – but Google won’t be able to catch accounts that use seemingly innocent words in a derogatory way.
How To Protect Your Sanity From Online Racists
If you are a parent, make sure that you oversee your child’s online activities, taking particular action to review online communications. Social media sites like Twitter and Instagram have garnered millions of users – and with that, hate groups have sprung up. You do not need to vet every message exchanged, but it is appropriate to have an overall sense of exchanged texts or messages.
If you are a victim of cyberbullying, do not be afraid to block users or have comments automatically delegated to a pending queue, a feature that is used by YouTube. The best – and most difficult – thing you can do is to not respond to the harassment.
These online communities thrive off of responses and reactions. If you feel unsafe, do not hesitate to collect information by screenshotting messages and contacting the web host, online support, or the proper authorities.
Have you been subject to online bullying? How did you deal with it?
Feature image by Forsaken Foto via Flickr/CC-BY-2.0
