Infestation 88 developer, Nightmare Forge Games, have responded to claims that the ‘88’ in the game’s title refers to the Neo-Nazi salute.
No, fascists do use dog whistles. near constantly. In part because they are generally too chicken shit to say anything. It is similar to how (fascist) republicans think they are clever with “go brandon” whereas liberals and leftists just say “Fuck trump, I hope he dies of the most painful cancer imaginable”.
And while there are “false positives”, those are almost all immediately resolved with “yo dog. Uhm… I get you are in your mid 30s but you may want to stop putting your birth year in posts” and a “… holy fuck. Fucking nazis”. Because, “context” generally does apply. The people who need to sign off “14 88” for every single tweet are usually also liking other white supremacist shit. Whereas the people who just got screwed over by what GFWL suggested their username should be twenty years ago have a history of advocating for tolerance and leftist thought.
As for “false negatives”: Okay? Some fascists will be undetected with or without acknowledging their “super secret code” of dog whistling.
I got your examples, but tone down your nationalistic bubbling - fascism is a global issue, and yet you’re framing it specifically into USA politics, as if other users were necessarily expected to be American.
In part because they are generally too chicken shit to say anything.
It’s because they’re generally too chicken shit that they avoid dogwhistles, and actually say it - using a dogwhistle actually increases their odds to be detected and called out.
Here’s a real example of that, from Reddit’s r/againsthatesubreddits.
TW: transphobia
This thread links a lot of transphobic replies to a r/trueunpopularopinion thread called “Pronouns should not be enforced as they are now.”
When you look at what the users say, on a discursive level, you find “wonderful”[/sarcasm] things like this:
The user is clearly associating trans people and changing one’s social identity with mental illness, that’s transphobic per excellence. And yet the nearest of a dogwhistle that you could claim is that he used the word “schizophrenic”.
Should we take “schizophrenic” as a dogwhistle? Well, then let’s put Mayo Clinic as potential spiritual successor to Mein Kampf. [/sarcasm]
And if someone says “Mayo Clinic doesn’t have the context to read it as a dogwhistle” - if you’re already going to use the context to dictate meaning, might as well ditch the concept of dogwhistle, and look for what they say.
And while there are “false positives”, those are almost all immediately resolved with “yo dog. Uhm… I get you are in your mid 30s but you may want to stop putting your birth year in posts” and a “… holy fuck. Fucking nazis”.
From my experience, that is far from true. Those people finding false positives will usually insist that the other is a Nazi, to the point of irrationality. Often doing things like I criticised Josh Fagundes (check the Twitter link in the OP) doing, and trying to justify their false positive as a true positive by grasping at straws.
It’s like witch hunting - once you get labelled a witch, it doesn’t really matter if you’re a witch or not, you’re going to be treated as one.
As for “false negatives”: Okay? Some fascists will be undetected with or without acknowledging their “super secret code” of dog whistling.
“Some”? No. More like “a lot of fascists”. Because you’re looking for a super secret code while they’re saying things in the open.
Also, note that trying to decrease the amount of false negatives will increase the amount of false positives, and vice versa. So those issues are interconnected.
EDIT: about your example:
“yo dog. Uhm… I get you are in your mid 30s but you may want to stop putting your birth year in posts” and a “… holy fuck. Fucking nazis”.
That is not how it usually happens. It’s usually like this:
- [Alice] you put a 88 in your posts, so I you’re probably a Nazi. Fuck off Nazi.
- [Bob] No, that’s my birth year. …holy fuck, fucking nazis. I’m removing the “88”.
- [Alice] Trying to hide yourself, Bob the Nazi? I’m not stupid! (implied: “I can’t be wrong!”)
- [Charlie] Alice said that Bob is a Nazi who uses 88 dogwhistles. He’s probably a Nazi.
- [Dan] Alice and Charlie said that Bob is a Nazi. Both. He’s a Nazi for sure. (implied: ad populum fallacy)
You see a low-key version of that in this very thread, with Josh being a low-key version of Alice.
