Archiving the Capitol Hill Riots
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https://twitter.com/unrealdeveloper/status/13157928647023943...
If it's distributed some way through the internet the cat's already out of the bag.
Actually, it's more like those who are guilty like deleting their own recordings, messages and pictures off of social media after the event is broadcasted all over the world, including the Proud Boys, BLM, Antifa and Patriot Prayer.
Of course our wise political leaders in congress took that as an opportunity to dunk on Trump as a weak leader who is hiding in a bunker. Many of the same politicians that fled the Capitol today.
I’m so tired of folks excusing their preferred rioting marauders while condemning their counterpart’s. They both suck. This is happening because our cities have let it happen - violent political tantrums have been normalized.
Many remain unaware that four city blocks of Seattle were occupied for a month by gunmen with assault rifles [0][1][2], or that those self-identified antifa gunmen shot and killed an unarmed black kid [3], or that antifa Twitter celebrated the killing and their shooter's "beautiful shot placement" [4] until it turned out they'd murdered a black kid instead of imaginary white supremacists. Note the now-deleted tweet's many likes and retweets.
The murdered kid's name was Antonio Mays Jr., and despite or perhaps because of [5] the many antifa eyewitnesses to the shooting, his killer remains at large.
That's just CHAZ/CHOP. I haven't even mentioned Michael Reinoehl, Matthew Dolloff, Jesse Taggart, and others. For some reason these incidents rapidly slipped from public view, or were never a focus at all. Fortunately the relevant livestreams, tweets, and video clips have all been archived.
Many of the original sources for the CHAZ/CHOP shootings are now unavailable. I encourage everyone to use tools like youtube-dl and archive-dot-is. Even if a clip, tweet, or stream doesn't seem to embarrass its owner or violate a platform's TOS, it may always get deleted for some other reason. If you want to refer to it later, always archive.
[0] https://www.foxbusiness.com/money/chop-shooting-seattle-defu...
[1] https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/after-early-mornin...
[2] https://www.the-sun.com/news/980814/heavily-armed-leftist-gu...
[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/29/us/seattle-protests-CHOP-...
[5] https://twitter.com/lporiginalg/status/1282703884721348609
Because Chaz or whatever it was called was certainly in the news. It's just, unsurprisingly, this is probably going to last for more news cycles than that did
When so many loud (and often elected) voices say Antifa or BLM have "burned cities down" or other such outright fabrications, it's hard to take the genuine criticism seriously.
If you make excuses for these people, engage in hyperbole/exaggeration/dismissal, parrot narratives mindlessly, or gossip on twitter then you are contributing to a system which helps these people, groups, and institutions avoid accountability and makes us all worse off for it. We will never have a stable nation as long as any of these people do not understand the error of their ways. Immediately after this storming of the Capitol I watched liberals parrot narratives saying the "Capitol Police let them in!" and yet [0] we now have stories of how a Capitol Police officer died after trying to defend the Capitol. I watched conservatives make up all kind of rosy views about the storming of the capitol and yet ignored they were prompted by Donald Trump and his obsession with maintaining power. You're all wrong.
[0] https://www.euronews.com/2021/01/08/us-capitol-riots-police-...
At at least one entry point, for whatever reason that narrative appears to have some justification:
https://mobile.twitter.com/disclosetv/status/134761599861091...
That said, with due respect I would note that I was responding to your apparently 'immediately arriving at a conclusion before the dust had settled' by calling her assessment a parroted narrative, likely before having seen that video.
We can all do better.
Hence my framing it in a very specific way to address that portion of your comment.
I guess what I really mean to say is that someone seeing that video and thinking, "some of those people were let inside by the Capitol Police" is not the most reckless interpretation of a video clip I've seen in the last twelve months, much less in my lifetime.
Now, "I saw that video and therefore it was staged by [Trump/Pelosi/etc.]," is where it becomes reckless and unjustifiable parroting of trending narratives. Let's wait for the investigation, and hope (however naively) that it is thorough and impartial, and that the public receives the full report.
Edited to add: I have never seen an American public so ready to be deceived and weaponized against each other as what we've seen with this last, long cycle of increasing tension (which appears to be far from over). And it's anyone's guess as to who will weaponize that more destructively.
So I think your ultimate point is both timely and important. Thank you for making it.
> Edited to add: I have never seen an American public so ready to be deceived and weaponized against each other as what we've seen with this last, long cycle of increasing tension (which appears to be far from over). And it's anyone's guess as to who will weaponize that more destructively.
Same. These times are very worrisome. I don't really know what to do anymore.
> So I think your ultimate point is both timely and important. Thank you for making it.
Same to you. I appreciate that there's still a place on the internet I can go where I can have discourse with people and not be shouted out of a room. I refuse to believe this is just the status quo going forward and meeting like-minded folks gives me hope.
On the other hand, I'm also (lamentably) aware of how few griefers it takes to turn a great multiplayer environment into something nearly worthless for that large majority of reasonable people.
That was posted 40 minutes before your comment, as the very first comment. Yeah, it’s a different thread. Still hard to miss as context for a good-faith interpretation of the comment you’re replying to. Which I believe we do do here.
I'm not intending some 'both sides' equivocation here. I'm saying I didn't see the people I replied to further up the thread as making that equivocation, I saw them as saying: People who record themselves doing something incriminating will probably delete it after. My goal was to say: hey, take a beat. We don't need a flamewar over this yet. Reading now, I can see how someone could read that to mean I am sympathetic to the notion that the BLM protests or George Floyd protests included groups of criminals or people behaving criminally in a way that is comparable to yesterday's events, so let me make it clear in bold point type that I do NOT.
It is possible those users did intend to draw that equivocation, which I think would be completely wrong of them. I am not remotely attempting to defend the actions of the rioters yesterday or to in any way characterize the George Floyd protests or BLM protests at large as remotely comparable or equivocal to the riots yesterday. I am not parroting a 'both sides' talking point.
I am reiterating this a lot, because I got a lot of hatemail for this comment. The only thing I am saying is: Most human beings who record themselves doing something they afterwards find dumb or incriminating will be likely to delete it. A user pointing out that two different political factions contain human beings subject to common human behaviors does not necessarily justify a political flamewar. I understand why that was read differently by some users, so in hindsight I should have just downvoted the flamebait and moved on as usual.
A user noted there is a 'similar archive' for both events. Another user noted both groups delete self-incriminating evidence. The user I replied to fired off a response I thought would have been appropriate if someone in the thread had said something like "antifa rioters are just as bad" or "just as much incriminating evidence was probably deleted after the George Floyd protests." I think a key thing is I didn't read "similar archive" to mean "an archive of illegal activity by non-police", I took it to mean "an archive of all the stuff that happened that people would want to delete." In the case of the George Floyd protests, often police brutality deleted by PDs, their supporters, etc.
I'm not intending some 'both sides' equivocation here. I'm saying I didn't see the people I replied to further up the thread as making that equivocation, I saw them as saying: People who record themselves doing something incriminating will probably delete it after, both groups contain people. My goal was to say: hey, take a beat. We don't need a flamewar over this yet. Reading now, I can see how someone could read that to mean I am sympathetic to the notion that the BLM protests or George Floyd protests included groups of criminals or people behaving criminally in a way that is comparable to yesterday's events, so let me make it clear in bold point type that I do NOT.
It is possible those users did intend to draw that equivocation, which I think would be completely wrong of them. I am not remotely attempting to defend the actions of the rioters yesterday or to in any way characterize the George Floyd protests or BLM protests at large as remotely comparable or equivocal to the riots yesterday. I am not parroting a 'both sides' talking point.
I am reiterating this a lot, because I got a lot of hatemail for this comment. The only thing I am saying is: Most human beings who record themselves doing something they afterwards find dumb or incriminating will be likely to delete it. A user pointing out that two different political factions contain human beings subject to common human behaviors does not necessarily justify a political flamewar. I understand why that was read differently by some users, so in hindsight I should have just downvoted the flamebait and moved on as usual.
Identifying criminals after the crime with FR is totally fine. using fuzzy facial matches for strict liability infringement policing / revenue raising is not ok.
It's a space that's due for some sensible legislation.
To me, this seems just dumb. Install a camera in your home, it will probably scare burglars, but I wouldn't expect much for broad deployment in public spaces. For violent crime it will do nothing, analogous to stronger sentences not working.
There will be countless security firms that will sell you the gadgets. But at that point you already became a victim in my opinion.
I am not from the US, but I believe your country could solve its issues with equality if you just make the whole thing a giant prison. That is innovative and the future and a blessing AI will grant us.
But no, still not in favor of its use. Democrats, or me at least, aren’t quite as quick to give up their principles.
"This folder/file was reported to contain objectionable content, such as Child Exploitation Material, Violent Extremism, or Beastiality. The link creator's account has been closed and their full details, including IP address, has been provided to the authorities."
It's a shame that it is so easy to abuse reporting and censor things you do not like.
The commoditization of digital technology has made on the spot video recording and streaming ubiquitous for better or worst. As a result, it has democratized citizen journalism. I use "journalism" here in the absolute broadest sense of the phrase as freedom of the press, through the 1st amendment, allows anyone to record and share events freely.
This isn't new since, historically, capturing and reporting on events has always happened organically through individuals and larger collectives. Whether that's through letters and missives, pamphlets, telegrams, diairies, manifests and so on. In modern times, photography and videography have added to that. And in contemporary times, blogposts, microblogging, and so on have amended that.
The big issue has always been this: authority.
When the efforts of private archivists are dismissed, it is always on the grounds of authority. What is their expertise that allows them making curatioral decisions? What are their motives and incentives to hoard online content? These are questions that can't easily be answered. Whereas the authority of public archives and libraries tends to be derived from their mission to serve the wider public: to record civic governance and to give the public the ability to hold policy makers accountable, but also to support the public debate and to allow reflection on civil society, past, present and future.
The same is true when we oppose citizen journalism against professional journalism. Where the latter has been perceived as authoritative on account of doing their due diligence, journalistic expertise and espoused core values. Whereas the same questions regarding citizen journalists are raised as well: credibility, authority, expertise, incentives and motives.
And yet...
The reality is that neither perceived as authoritive institutions nor intrepid individuals are exclusive to holding an absolute truth when it comes to creating, keeping and disseminating historical sources.
Regardless of how this gets spun, historical records always - always! - give a limited, keyhole look on an event. The historic perspective and the interpretation we give to sources is always limited by what got recorded, and what sources present to us.
It is only by combining sources, cross referencing them and an ongoing process of contextualizing that we can inch closer to a nuanced perspective of the past such as it was.
For instance, while the archival records of the city archives of Amsterdam may provides administrative details of the persecution and deportation of Jewish families during World War II, it is the private diary of Anne Frank that gives insight in the personal experience of hiding underground.
While the events around the assassination of JFK have been recorded in great detail by professional journalists and officials, the event itself was only captured by 32 on-lookers who had their film and photograph equipment. This included Abraham Zapruder. [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_John_F._Kenne...
As far as contemporaries were concerned, as events unfolded, the former was just the private musings of a little girl and the latter was a home video of an amateur who accidentally was in the right spot at the right time. Neither of which were seen as source of huge historic importance. That only happened later on.
All of this to say that the speed at which, today, mere minutes into the event, individuals felt the need to record events as they unfolded shows how the exponentially increased complexity of our digital world has made all of this even more fraught.
This complexity has spawned massive amounts of digital data which will be very hard to assess and curate. And which will make it, undoubtedly, even harder to combine sources and interpret what has happened and what has triggered this.
As it happens, making curational decisions from a historic perspective is impossible. There just hasn't been enough distance between the past and the present to see clearly the former in the rear view mirror. Rather then focussing on curating and value attribution, collecting and safeguarding is of importance in the moment itself.
Any discussion about authority of sources and their historical relevance, or the capturing of online sources via private archiving efforts, can only happen in earnest as time passes and the mounds of materials gathered can be processed in earnest.
This usually decays into a right mess as is outlined.
This is nothing to do with tech. It’s closer to burning witches who are undesirable in your community. It makes your community broken.
For this Jan 6th march, I saw many people on right wing websites saying they wanted to fight BLM/ANTIFA people and give them the beat down basically.
We’re a tribal species. This just allows us to execute our base instincts quicker.
It’s stupid really.
On politics I refuse to align with any ideology, only policies. There’s no us and them argument then, just the merit of the policy to consider.
Sometimes letting people vent is a good idea. They tend not to torch neighborhoods.
If you think there is a mass that will get influenced and radicalized, it is probably only due to legislators and companies trying to police people into a narrow corridor of opinions.
The issue here again isn’t technology but taking ideas as verbatim and lack of critical reasoning. This ultimately leads to people seeking kinship with idiots and frauds rather than dismantling their ideas carefully and ridiculing them.
The issue is as always: education. Education is certainly promoted by the tech sector.
I’m not defending them here for reference, merely suggesting that the issues are human and transcend the platform.
18 U.S. Code § 1752 - Restricted building or grounds
(a) Whoever—
(2) knowingly, and with intent to impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions, engages in disorderly or disruptive conduct in, or within such proximity to, any restricted building or grounds when, or so that, such conduct, in fact, impedes or disrupts the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions;
Trump is a power hungry man it seems. He’d even break the highest constitutional law of the land if he could get away with it, and not relinquish power. However good thing we’ve respected and kept the 2nd amendment law of the land, so there is a force who will not allow him to break that law of the land. Weirdly enough though Trump is taking a play from the “who cares if we don’t follow the constitution” crowd.
Will the constitution lovers prove to be hypocrites, and be fine with breaking it here? Will those who have argued for unconstitutional laws to be passed via the Supreme Court be annoyed, when his newly elected scota judges reinterpret the constitution to let him remain president?
Let’s hope that he elected judges who take the constitution written as is so he is firmly booted out of his office without the government to back him Or else it smells like a civil war. Not the North and South this time, but probably rural vs city, across all states. That is a scary thought.
In 50 years what is going to be "hard to find" and unarchived? The things that NOBODY is talking about now! You need to be coldly unemotional and consider what your community DOES NOT CARE ABOUT. This will often be things that are politically awkward for you and your community. There will be 1000s of people archiving this event and NONE archiving events which do not suit the political narrative. Accepting this is difficult!
What is happening here is the equivalent of your parents keeping a newspaper of man first landing on the moon, which is now the most common vintage newspaper that exists.
Beyond that, let people archive what they want. If you think there are more important targets, archive it yourself or politely ask their community for assistance.
Is this a true statement? Is it not that popular things are the things that people remember? The Beatles were popular. But that’s not why they are remembered. There were other popular bands completely forgotten.
Things become popular for various reasons. Sometimes it is because it reflects a truth of the time, or it was simply good, or beautiful. Other times it is because it’s something that feeds a craving. Mass produced food isn’t necessarily good, but it is popular. I think the things that are good beautiful and true, can be the popular things, but they often aren’t. However the things that last are often good beautiful and true and the things that don’t aren’t.
Then again our memory of Hitler lasts, and he wasn’t good, but he did reveal what good was, because it shone so bright against the dark evil of his way of thinking that permeated that culture so well. If you think of Hitler’s murder of Jews, then think of the stories told about those unknowns who risked their lives hiding Jews. The stories show that an utterly unknown person is a vastly better person than Hitler, and his name will never be celebrated the way that unknown person is.
We’d do better as a society if we told less stories about Hitler, and more stories of the unknown, courageous, good sacrificial man, who saved the lives of many Jews.