Activision and Infinity Ward have removed the “OK” hand gesture in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and its battle royale edition Warzone. The update was a quiet one that was not expanded on when the mid-season update rolled in. This update replaced the “OK” hand gesture with a new gesture dubbed “crush.”
If you don’t know, back in September 2019, the Anti-Defamation League (best known as the ADL) added the “OK” hand gesture to its list of “hate symbols.” As silly as this may sound, this puerile act has swept across the web where if someone uses the hand gesture as it was intended or in some tongue-in-cheek way, that person might be hit with a ban.
Well, according to website eurogamer.net (archive), the social justice publication site reached out to both Activision and Infinity Ward for word on why the “OK” hand gesture was removed and replaced, but the two have not responded for more than a week. The outlet concludes that the hand gesture’s removal is likely due to people using the symbol under the ADL’s “hate symbol” definition.
Nevertheless, in typical Reddit fashion, the moderators for the Modern Warfare sub-reddit locked a post remembering the “OK” hand gesture after the publisher and developer removed it from the first-person shooter.
In other words, if you try to bring up anything related to the “OK” hand gesture, you are either silenced or banned from whatever it is that you are participating in. And in the case of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone, you can no longer perform said hand gesture ever since last week.
Seeing that social justice warriors keep moving like a derailed freight train with its boxcars crashing into other boxcars, it’s only a matter of time that the peace sign, thumbs up, or something simple like saying “hello” becomes “hate” related.
With that said, this move should come in as no surprise given that both Activision and Infinity Ward are both on the Traitors of America list. Anyway, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is out now across PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
