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The Anti-Defamation League officially adds the 'OK' sign, the bowl-style haircut to its database of hate symbols
Photo by George Marks/Retrofile/Getty Images

The Anti-Defamation League officially adds the 'OK' sign, the bowl-style haircut to its database of hate symbols

Quite an update to the list

The "OK" hand sign and the bowl-style haircut are now hate symbols — at least according to the Anti-Defamation League.

The group launched its hate symbol database in 2000, and it features nearly 200 entries.

What are the details?

The ADL released a Thursday report revealing that the "OK" sign is now on their ever-evolving list of offensive and hate-filled symbols, according to CNN.

According to the New York City-based organization, the finger-and-thumb "OK" symbol became linked to white nationalism after a hoax on website 4chan insisted that the sign stood for "white power" and white supremacy.

"It was meant to bait the media or people with liberal ideals to overreact," a portion of the CNN report read, "and therefore look ridiculous for condemning such an innocuous sign. But in 2019, the sign was adopted by some white nationalists."

The ADL's report said that white supremacists began using the hand sign in a non-ironic way, which now makes it a hate symbol.

"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."

In a statement, Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the organization, told CNN, "We believe law enforcement and the public needs to be fully informed about the meaning of these images, which can serve as a first warning sign to the presence of haters in a community or school."

He told NBC News that even though seemingly innocuous symbols such as the "OK" symbol, for example, have been around for decades and decades, they can be easily manipulated into a force for promoting hate and sowing seeds of division.

"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," he explained.

What else?

A mass killer's bowl-style haircut also made the list along with the "OK" sign.

Known simply as the "bowlcut," any symbol of the hairstyle resembles the same one "sported by white supremacist mass killer Dylan Roof."

"People who use the 'bowlcut' image or other 'bowl' references admire Roof and call for others to emulate his racist murders," the organization insist.

The ADL's website describes such symbols as "modern calling cards of hate."

"ADL has expanded and updated its online resource of hate symbols to include 36 new entries, including white supremacist symbols adopted in recent years by the alt right segment of the movement. These are the modern calling cards of hate," the website says.

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