Call of Duty: Modern Warfare removes ‘OK’ gesture over concerns of it being used as hate symbol

Developers of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare has removed the "OK" gesture from its video game due to growing concern that players were using it as a hate symbol.According to a report in Independent, while developer Infinity Ward or published Activision have not confirmed the exact reason for the removal of the gesture, the hand signal is well-known to be used by right-wing activists.[caption id="attachment_8476861" align="alignnone" width="1280"] Call of Duty Modern Warfare[/caption]As per the report, the gesture was popular for players to celebrate the completion of a successful match on the hit multiplayer shooter mode. However, it has now been replaced with an emote called "crush."The 'OK' gesture as a hate symbol gained popularity in 2017 when it was used on social media site4chan, the report said, adding that the "Alt-right" are often photographed performing the gesture.Infinity Ward had earlier issued a tweet stating that there was no place for racist content in their game.They wrote, "This is an effort we began with launch and we need to do a better job," adding, "We’re issuing thousands of daily bans of racist and hate-oriented names. But we know we have to do more.”The company also stated that they would be adding additional resources to monitor and identify racist content, increase the number of hourly bans, and adding filters and improved restrictions on name changes.As per a report in Eurogamer, the gesture has been missing since a 30 June update and was quickly noticed because of its popularity in the game.