No Stupid Questions
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What's a dog whistle?
Frequently how it shows up on "No Stupid Questions" is that they're pushing a bigoted agenda under the guise of "I'm just asking a question and everyone's attacking me for it." Like if someone came to No Stupid Questions and asked (and this is just an example, not my position at all) "why is there so much trans propaganda on Lemmy?" or whatever. (And in the thread when people are like "you're a bigot" they respond with "I didn't say anything bigoted. I just asked a question.")
But yeah. Like what Xtallll said, it's more generally using language/symbols that for the in group is a reference they'll all get but for everyone else at least retains an air of plausible deniability. Often it's done by politicians (particularly right-wing politicians) to try to straddle the fence between the extremits and more moderates in their party. If a politician speaks in support of "states' rights," they'll get the vote of the extremists who know that "states' rights" actually means racist policies and also the moderates who still think or perhaps are still deluding themselves that it means somthing vague but more benign.
urban dictionary Dog whistle is a type of strategy of communication that sends a message that the general population will take a certain meaning from, but a certain group that is "in the know" will take away the secret, intended message. Often involves code words.
Republicans say they want to make civil rights for gays a state issue, which is really just a dog whistle strategy for saying that they will refuse to grant equal rights on a federal level.
That’s such a bad example for a good definition
Hmm I wonder why muscilunge said 88 million in this tweet? It could have been any number, right? Why 88?
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1596439328338890752
What do you think, dog?
Just a dog: bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark
Erhm... Could you explain what that means?
In case this is genuine asking, here's the coded logic dogwhistle:
H is the 8th letter of the alphabet So 88 = HH, which was used in WW2 communications by the Nazis for Heil Hitler.
So people who just so happen to randomly put 88 into a random thought online are signaling to the people in the know that they're also in the know.
Before you say "but thats stupid and childish, why would anyone go through that much effort to hide their shitty beliefs that way?" that's exactly the purpose of dogwhistles. It' high effort enough that normal people wouldn't expect anyone to put that much childish effort into it, and anyone who points out the dog whistle looks crazy to the normies because of how childish it the dogwhistle is and the dogwhistlers get to feign innocence being attacked by the twitter mob over a number.
I appreciate the actual explanation. I was genuinely asking, although I thought the commenter's reply was much funnier.
What a world we live in.
Random thought; a twitter nazi decoder ring could be a really funny novelty item
Good thing thar decoder ring exists: https://www.adl.org/resources/hate-symbols/search
Bark bark bark bark bark bark
Great. Now I'm going to have to name my next dog Half_Built_Pyramids and explain that he barks at dog whistles.
An actual dog whistle sounds at a frequency (?) inaudible to humans but is heard by dogs. The “secret phrase” can be said out loud, but like the whistle, only the big dogs hear it - the rest of the humans don’t. Does that make sense? It’s used as an analogy.
Yeah, makes sense
It's a shibboleth, a way of asking a question that people who share your ideology will recognize as pushing it, while those who do not will not. This is like a dog whistle that can be heard by dogs but not by humans.
In question form it's also often subtle propaganda, asking a question that presupposes something controversial, like "Why are trans players allowed to win so much on sports?" where the simple shibboleth might be "Should trans players be allowed in sports?" Both are confronting the same point, but the former assumes a trend that has not been demonstrated, while the latter simply assumes some reason without making it clear what the reason is.