4chan is a forum where everybody posts completely anonymously, and no post can be linked to anybody in particular. Some of these groups of people posting there are notorious for organizing all kinds of activism and trolling campaigns (some of them surprisingly effective, like "Project Chanology", which was an absolutely massive and quite successful protest against the Church of Scientology and their crimes and abuses.)
Some years ago these activists came up with a funny way to troll the western mainstream media and far-leftist activists: They started spreading the notion that the "OK" hand gesture (which has existed for decades, if not centuries) is a "white supremacist" and "neo-nazi" hand gesture (because the hand gesture kind of contains the forms of the letters W and P, which according to them means "white power").
This was purely an invention of these activists at 4chan. As far as I know, no actual white supremacist neo-nazi had ever used this gesture as one of their "secret" symbols.
The intent of this troll was to make fun of far-leftist activists, activist organizations and the mainstream media, by fooling them into believe a completely fictitious made-up "fact", and to show how gullible they are, as they will grasp at any straw they can in order to attack their opponents and claim that the western world is full of "white supremacist neo-nazis".
I think that this joke campaign backfired quite massively. And it backfired because it was so incredibly and astonishingly successful.
Far-leftist activist organizations and mainstream media swallowed the troll, hook, line and sinker, and they did it gladly! And suddenly "this is a white supremacist neo-nazi hand gesture" was everywhere, and was stated as a complete fact. Most of them knew that this "fact" was just invented by anonymous people on 4chan, but they didn't really care.
They didn't care because suddenly they got a perfect weapon to attack dissenters, people they don't like. After all, the gesture is in extremely common use, and has been for many decades, and most people use it all the time, consciously or subconsciously.
Thus, if there's someone that the far left wants to dig dirt about, this is one of the weapons they can use, and are using: If that person has ever made, or ever makes, that gesture, that's one vector of attack by the far left against that person.
Completely innocent people have been harassed and attacked just for making the hand gesture.
And, incredibly, this rhetorical weapon is still being used by far-leftists and the mainstream media to this day, even after all these years. The "OK hand gesture is a white supremacist gesture" has been adopted as a "fact" and it seems to be here to stay for the foreseeable future, as a weapon to attack dissenters. It doesn't matter how fake the original "fact" was.
And not just in the United States. Recently the New Zealand mainstream media tried to smear the feminist activist who goes by the pseudonym Posie Parker, showing a short video clip where she was zipping up a jacket, and her hand briefly made a shape that very barely resembled the "OK" gesture.
So, quite sadly, while the 4chan plan to troll the western mainstream media and far-leftist activists was incredibly successful, unfortunately it was a bit too successful and just provided them with yet another weapon to use to attack, smear and defame people they don't like. The 4chan activists gave them this weapon on a silver platter, probably unintentionally. Their original intent was probably to show how ridiculous and laughable the mainstream media is, as they can be so easily fooled to believing complete hogwash. Unfortunately, the plan was too successful and now innocent people are paying the price.
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