Context matters in almost all human communication. And humans are pretty good at negotiating context. Scuba divers won’t lose the symbol. But scuba divers also don’t protect a bunch of people posing with Richard Spencer and making the gesture.

> And humans are pretty good at negotiating context.

In politics? I think people are pretty bad at understanding context about people they see as having different values. The way you handle uncertainty is to fill in the blanks with prior knowledge, also known as bias. When someone has a bias against the person, that turns quite ugly.

Less well in politics, but still well enough. Certainly well enough not to be confused about its use when diving.

When you read "inflammable", you can often, from the context, determine whether it means flammable or not. Sometimes you can't.

The same applies to the OK sign.

Flashing it surrounded by notorious racists after the 4chan hoax leaves no doubt about the intended meaning.

Also, given that's it's now been coopted by nazis, you may want to be careful when flashing it if you want to avoid embarrassing ambiguities, yes. It was probably a fad in these circles, not sure it is still used, but still.

I’m not disagreeing with your larger point, but FYI “inflammable” always means “easily catches fire” and never anything else.

Not a native speaker, and I thought it was one of these words that are their own antonym... Must have crossed wires :-)

I never thought I’d see the Simpsons Dr Nick joke in real life.

> Flashing it surrounded by notorious racists after the 4chan hoax leaves no doubt about the intended meaning.

Trolling is a meaning. I think in that situation it’s even more ambiguous since the “troll power” is so much greater then.

I think it’s unambiguous that the user is a shit-stirrer certainly, probably an asshole. But not necessarily racist. Or no more so than your average run of the mill “everyone is racist subconsciously” racist.

I think what’s hard is that it’s a negative thing to do that brings more chaos and harm into the world. It could be racist/white power that is super bad, let’s say 100 on the bad-o-meter. Or it could be trolling the pearl clutchers that is mildly bad, let’s say 11 on the bad-o-meter. And for scale, punching someone in the face is 200 and murdering someone is 1000.

Even if it is meant as a troll, it is still a way to signal kinship, among folks whose views are not exactly a secret.

Haha, only serious...

Hence, ultimately, a racist (if layered) symbol in this context. It's not been flashed as a joke by non-racist people.

It can signal kinship with troll-clan. So it’s used by non-racist trolls. And racist trolls. And racists. And just normal people who aren’t up on current events (eg, elementary school).

Are you thick? Really. Can you not see the difference?

It would only be an issue if you were SCUBA diving with a white supremacist and doing the hand sign.