Item — HN Reader

What is this term "virtue-signal" supposed to mean? I see it thrown around all the time. It's such a vague and weird way to criticize something, but it seems to represent something that make a lot of people very upset.

I looked at the carousel images at mozilla.org and skimmed the article about anonymity to try to decipher what you mean, but I'm not sure what I'm looking for. Could you be more specific – what is the "virtue signal", and why is it so problematic?

5 comments

Virtue signaling is term that had some scientific use but is mostly used online by people who don't like your morals, values, etc. Accuse you of doing if you display them at all in a public place. It's meant to be used to shut down anything but the most bland and status quo morality, by turning the simple act of showing any values at all into something nefarious instead something almost universal Someone says they want to hire more women, accuse of virtue signaling, rinse repeat. The thing is it works for literally any normative content.

Thanks. This makes me even more curious what were the values represented by the photos in the carousel, prompting mjolk to call them out as virtue signalling.

In isolation, the photos in the carousel would not lead me to believe that Mozilla is virtue signaling as the photos are just pictures of people. The aggregate message from their ad copy and the specific choice to use loaded terms is what made me aware that they wanted to employ this strategy.

However, to be cheeky, if you wanted to talk solely based on which photos passed editorial approval, compare those represented to the physical attributes of their leadership team: https://blog.mozilla.org/press/media-library/bios/

> What is this term "virtue-signal" supposed to mean?

As other people mentioned, it's an overused expression, but it's meant to call attention to an outward expression of a particular viewpoint or ideology, particularly with the aim of increasing the standing of an entity within a particular group.

> why is it so problematic?

Where it becomes "problematic" is when the need to communicate cohesion with a cause does so at the expense of reality or otherwise weakens a campaign. Whereas before I stood in unwavering support of Mozilla, their language now seeks to define their company as the crusader against the "others" who would seek a less "inclusive" or "respectful" internet, and coupled with their imagery, they, as a company, are communicating identity politics in those that they feel are underrepresented or deserve special attention based on physical attributes -- which goes counter to the "hacker" mentality against genetic fallacies/the ideal that an idea is more important than the physical attributes of the person that expressed it.

> What is this term "virtue-signal" supposed to mean?

LMGTFY https://www.google.com/search?q=virtue+signalling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling

Virtual signaling is a public demonstration of values, but usually with the negative connotation of an ulterior motive to improve social standing and collect praise.

"Wearing your religion on your sleeve" is an older, similar expression.

I don't think this applies here.

"Greenwashing" is one common example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwashing

It can also apply to anything that a culture considers virtuous or trendy, though.

It's the libertarian right's version of "triggered"

Registered democrat and not at all a libertarian, but I appreciate your dismissive and disrespectful attitude. Thank you for your contribution.