7 October 2026
Dark Memes on Facebook: Coded Language, Hateful Humor, and Plausible Deniability
The article examines how dark memes on Facebook use coded visual and linguistic strategies to communicate hateful meanings while retaining plausible deniability.
Drawing on qualitative netnographic material and cultural-criminological analysis of memes, posts, comments and reactions, it shows how irony, ambiguity, indirect references and humour make hateful content difficult to identify in isolation. Meaning often emerges through interaction between a meme and the comments that follow. The findings therefore show why content moderation must account for interactional context rather than assessing individual words, images or posts alone.