[Ads-l] =?utf-8?Q?=E2=80=9C=28=28=28echo=29=29=29=E2=80=9D_?=symbol and term for anti-Semitic labeling of Jewish people online

[Christopher Philippo]

Quite a lot of coverage of the “(((echo)))” symbol  lately:
https://mic.com/articles/144228/echoes-exposed-the-secret-symbol-neo-nazis-use-to-target-jews-online
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/07/us-antisemitism-anti-defamation-league-echo-hate-symbol-chrome
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/google-deletes-anti-semitic-echo-app-no-need-a7071426.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/06/08/us-anti-semitism-watchdog-adds-echo-symbol-to-hate-symbols-datab/
http://www.vox.com/2016/6/6/11860796/echo-explained-parentheses-twitter
http://www.timesofisrael.com/adl-puts-jew-targeting-echo-alongside-swastika-on-hate-list/
http://nymag.com/selectall/2016/06/understanding-the-alt-rights-jew-parentheses.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/06/03/anti-semitic-trump-supporters-made-a-giant-list-of-people-to-target-with-a-racist-meme/
etc.

The mic article notes the difficulty of getting a search engine to search for specific punctuation rather than ignoring it.  Searching for “(((echo)))” is useless at the moment:

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=%22%28%28%28echo%29%29%29%22

A search for :
echo parentheses
works better at the moment.
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#tbm=nws&q=echo+parentheses

I’d faced that sort problem in the past when trying to searching for shape poems using punctuation, among other things.  The problem also seems to apply to emoticons.  Searching for “:-)” for example:

https://twitter.com/search?q=%22%3A-%29%22&src=typd&lang=en

Twitter does return somewhat relevant results, but includes all kinds of typescript emoticons (happy, sad, etc.) as well as emoji emoticons of all kinds.  What if one really did want to find just typecript smilies incorporating a colon, dash, and close parenthesis?  Out of luck, seemingly.  Or find the echo symbol being used in an image?  Probably also out of luck (at least one person used it in an image, one of the World Trade Center - surrounding one of the planes https://twitter.com/PaulTown_/status/740629658656505856 ).  Or determine how the usage of (((echo))) expanded over time since 2015, how many separate user accounts using it each month?

One also finds the reverse, though I haven’t seen it mentioned in any of the articles about “(((echo)))” and don’t know if there’s a term for it.  AFAICT it’s being used by white supremacist anti-Semites to identify themselves.

)))Lana Lokteff((( https://twitter.com/LanaLokteff
)))Third Position((( https://twitter.com/Third_Position
)))Hunter Wallace((( https://twitter.com/occdissent
etc.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org