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Comment by Nacdor | Hacker News Reader

Glenn Greenwald has been investigating the planning of the Capitol protests and says "it was largely done on Facebook". So far he hasn't been able to identify a single person who was arrested and active on Parler:

> Do you know how many of the people arrested in connection with the Capitol invasion were active users of Parler? Zero. The planning was largely done on Facebook. This is all a bullshit pretext for silencing competitors on ideological grounds: just the start.

> For those asking the basis for that last claim: I spent the weekend reporting on the removal of Parler from the internet, including reviewing lots of documents and interviewing people associated with the companies involved, including Parler.

> The article will be up shortly.

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1348619731734028293

I would be more interested in hearing if all these prominent figures in the Capitol protests were active across multiple (or all) social media platforms, which often seems to be the case. If that is true, then it makes for an even stronger argument that Parler has been singled out.

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And his claim was refuted in mere minutes. An extremely disingenuous argument on his behalf.

Glenn has done great work in the past for which he should be commended, but these days he's a contrarian in search of hot takes. It's just how the Twitter / Patreon journalist economy operates. He will throw a huge hissy fit about the mainstream media but then happily go on Fox News with Tucker.

he has always been like this. if it wasn't for Snowden choosing him because he liked his politics, nobody would care what Greenwald has to say.

Nah I disagree. He used to truly dive into the story regardless of ideology. It was about the truth and the facts of the case. Specifically, his writing on the Anthrax case is top-tier journalism. He also bravely defended Nazis in court and stood up for their rights, which I deeply respect (and a totally different scenario than the current Parler debacle).

But having said that, it's clear lately he puts politics / optics first and then dives into an issue.

Or maybe he always put politics first and people just didn't notice

If you're feeling lazy, it's also easier to find those posts on Facebook because that's where everyone is (network effect). Parlor was poised to capitalize on discontent with the social media companies that were banning Trump but the influx of users was just starting.

I'm not familiar enough with Twitter's UI to navigate it properly. Could you link the refutation?

There's several posts in this thread below mine with links to activities being planned on Parler, including a man who was arrested with weapons in DC

I agree with this take on Greewald. That Twitter thread, and his recent substack article, is effectively attacking private property, and implying that corporations ought to be compelled to transmit and amplify all speech. According to greewald, if I send a letter to the editor to the New York Times, and it’s not published, that’s a violation of my free speech. Patent nonsense.

When has he done great work in the past? His coverage of the Snowden documents was so bad that people who read his articles understood less about what was in the documents than people who didn't. For example, he still hasn't issued a correction for his PRISM reporting.

This is almost certainly false. For example, see the arrest of the leader of the Proud Boys (for events prior to Capitol, but played active role on Parler encouraging proud boys violence that day):

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/several-well-know...

The story does confirm he wasn't there though, not sure if he had been released by then:

> Tarrio does not appear to have been present during the insurrection.

Because he was arrested prior. The coordination and planning took place on Parler.

And if he was arrested prior that indicates some awareness in advance of what might have unfolded. I’m probably alone in the opinion that it shouldn’t have been given the go ahead, especially amidst a pandemic. Protests seem unreasonably dangerous in today’s world.

He had an outstanding warrant in DC. They picked up him when he arrived.

>For example, see the arrest of the leader of the Proud Boys (for events prior to Capitol, but played active role on Parler encouraging proud boys violence that day)

You seem to be talking about Enrique Tarrio, the latino leader of the "Proud Boys" who was arrested when he stepped off his plane, for the crime of burning a blm symbol in DC the month before.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/proud-boys-leader-arres...

But you also seem to be trying to correlate that to this event. I don't know how they are related to Parler, can you explain?

Why do you think Tarrio was in DC on the 6th, then?

Proof that they planned... to be in DC.

>> Do you know how many of the people arrested in connection with the Capitol invasion were active users of Parler? Zero. The planning was largely done on Facebook. This is all a bullshit pretext for silencing competitors on ideological grounds: just the start.

> This is almost certainly false. For example, see the arrest of the leader of the Proud Boys (for events prior to Capitol, but played active role on Parler encouraging proud boys violence that day):

And this:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/technology/capitol-twitte...:

> Those alternative social media sites were rife with Trump supporters organizing and communicating on Wednesday. On Parler, one trending hashtag was #stormthecapitol. Many Trump supporters on the sites also appeared to believe a false rumor that Antifa, a left-wing movement, was responsible for committing violence at the protests.

> “WAKE UP AMERICA, IT’S ANTIFA and BLM operatives who are committing the violence, NOT TRUMP SUPPORTERS!,” said one Parler account member called @Trumpfans100, offering no evidence for the claims.

Even though Greenwald is wrong, he's not totally wrong. I think he's correct that the "majority" of the planning happened on Facebook, but that was kind of a funnel to Parler. My understanding is that was mostly for seemingly legit stuff, event for protests, was done on Facebook. Those pages then linked to Parler, where more extreme planning took place, out-of-reach from Facebook's policies.

> Glenn Greenwald has been investigating the planning of the Capitol protests and says "it was largely done on Facebook".

Glenn Greenwald also chose to make the fake Giuliani/Hunter Biden laptop story the hill on which he wished to die upon, related to his resignation from the Intercept, so whatever credibility he had remaining has long since departed.

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=greenwald...

What was fake about the Hunter Biden allegations? It was proven that Hunter had shady dealings with various foreign companies.

> the fake Giuliani/Hunter Biden laptop story

What was fake about it?

AFAIK no factual claim has been refuted and some have been robustly proved (e.g. the gmail sent emails that have been published pass DKIM validation).

If you want to say the timing of it was a transparent attempt at political manipulation, I'd fully agree.

Good point, I had forgotten that Rob of Errata Security was given an email to verify and it was proven to be legitimate:

> So as I blogged before, the emails contained DKIM information, which the original reporters could and should have verified. So I eventually got a copy of the email and run DKIM verification on it. It passed:

https://twitter.com/erratarob/status/1322007153415200768

I think he's pretty active (and well-respected) on HN.

Strange that Rob doesn't mention the possibility that the private key was compromised. What the DKIM signature really proves is the date the message was sent, not who composed the message.

I agree that is a possibility, but he probably didn't mention it because it's so remote. When you have someone's laptop with a bunch of private sexual photos, reams of PII and emails, and you can verify with witnesses and crypto that the emails check out, the rational explanation is "maybe the laptop is real" rather than "maybe Google got hacked six years ago and the extremely valuable private keys were saved for this".

That is, I do agree with you and your technical analysis, but don't see the point of nitpicking his Twitter reporting. I think if you're on Twitter, you already know that you're not getting every little detail of a story.

Exactly, and weeks after the story broke, it was revealed the FBI was actively investigating Hunter Biden.

You can also download all the uncensored photos on many leak websites. The photos are clearly Hunter Biden in many sexually explicit positions (although none of them appear to be underage as was suggested by some).

I think there is a prima fascia case against Hunter for his ties to Burisma and his appointment being purely for political clout and a power move; a move that should be investigated for possible direct security risks to the American government and the American people.

His point all along was "The laptop isn't a big deal, the censorship is". I don't know the details regarding Hunter Biden's business dealings or his laptop (although I've heard there is at least one ongoing investigation, possibly more), but the censorship is probably one of the bigger stories of the year. Twitter admitted they were blocking the story prior to fact-checking, and this decision was made by someone who had previously worked for the DCCC:

> While I will intentionally not link to the New York Post, I want be clear that this story is eligible to be fact checked by Facebook's third-party fact checking partners. In the meantime, we are reducing its distribution on our platform.

https://twitter.com/andymstone/status/1316395902479872000?re...

Yep. Turn on anyone who doesn't support the narrative. So sad to see someone who has been so principled for so long on all the modern topics we should care about get viciously character assasinated so readily by people without a moments hesitancy. I have had my disagreements with GG, particularly in his naive taking on of PO for the money, but this refusal to acknowledge both his dedication to truth (which often makes him look contrarian) and how correct he has been on those topics just speaks volumes about how deeply ingrained the crazy is for those who decide he's persona-non-grata due to not supporting their favorite conspiracy theories.

The same kind of people now openly railing against GG are the same kind of people who will do everything they can to not acknowledge Ray McGovern because his professional and personal past make him a harder target on the topic. Of course, it wouldn't surprise me to see plenty of them try the same charater assasination on him, but it's an obvious marker of complete rejection of truth in favor of tribalisms.

Disgusting seeing so many turn on GG et al so quickly. Ya'll should be ashamed of yourselves.

It's not that he "didn't support the narrative".

He believed a story with little evidence and his journalistic integrity became questionable.

Thats a mischaraterization at best, which is sort of my point. What GG said and his real positions don't matter. What matters is he bucked the narrative (mostly when he pushed against the propaganda push that the HB laptop leak was of Russian origin) and that made him bad, and then the justifications for his "bad" label were found afterwards. They don't hold up to scrutiny but the character assassination is done already.

In his own words:

“I don’t think that the emails — so far — reveal a huge scandal. They so far just establish standard sleaze and DC corruption. The huge scandal to me is the blatant rank-closing and cone of silence — a prohibition — erected by journalists around this story to defend Biden,”

“Is there a single journalist willing to say with a straight face they believe the emails relating to the Bidens are either fabricated or otherwise fraudulently altered, but the Bidens just aren’t saying so?,”

“When you report a huge archive, there’s no way to prove the negative that none of it is altered. You investigate & confirm as much as you can, then use your journalistic judgment. The only way you get confirmation is when the subjects of the reporting don’t deny the authenticity,”

“You know the subjects of the reporting will immediately claim they’re fake if the are. Of course they will: that would kill the reporting!”

“There’s a reason the Bidens aren’t claiming they’re fake,”

https://greenwald.substack.com/

I followed him on Twitter before he left the intercept and before Substack. I used to respect him.

He thought the laptop story was true and barked about it for days. He had no evidence to think it was true, it just was to him.

His substack work was after he humiliated himself on Twitter and is largely trying to justify how stupid he was.

I have followed GG's writing for over 10 years myself, actually reading his articles as opposed to twitter headlines, and I think its telling after the effort I went trhough to try to have a real conversation, that is your response.

Downvote all you want Biden lackies, it doesnt change the uncomfortable facts!

> Downvote all you want Biden lackies, it doesnt change the uncomfortable facts!

See now I know this is about political identity to you and not about the truth.

Your response here indicates you were never trying to have a conversation at all.

Not true at all. I bet you even think you know what my political identity (what a horrid combination of words!) is just because of the phrase, but in all probability you are wrong. On the contrary, I came with quotes from the man the discussion was about, you are the one who came with comments of no substance.

Projection at its most obvious.

Yet you presumed to know that anyone downvoting you must be a "Biden lackey".

True enough, I should have phrased it better, and just not said anything at all (bad form on hn to talk about downvotes), but on a topic about someone I respect immensely I got frustrated to see downvotes used in leui of discussion. I do think downvotes on the topic are highly probable to be from people who support Biden, which I didn't, (not a Trump supporter either, and I hate that I need to quantify like that), but it doesnt really matter. Hn is about elevating the convo, not devolving it. Sorry, my bad.

I'm really scared to trust Greenwald on anything political at the moment.

For a start, the silencing competitors argument doesn't really work with AWS because they just do hosting.

Greenwald's own news organization kicked him out because he refused to let anyone fact check his grossly inaccurate posts.

> For a start, the silencing competitors argument doesn't really work with AWS because they just do hosting.

The complaint alleges there are deeper ties:

Less than a month ago, AWS announced with a press release a new multi-year deal with Twitter. AWS will “provide global cloud infrastructure to deliver Twitter timelines.” Twitter Selects AWS as Strategic Provider to Serve Timelines, Press Center, Amazon, (Dec. 15, 2020), https://press.aboutamazon.com/news-releases/news-release-det....

They also signed a multi-year deal with Pinterest which is a competitor to twitter. So that argument won’t get very far.

That's a pretty typical-looking big customer kind of arrangement for a cloud provider (including the press release), not anything seemingly deeper than typical. (To be clear, I have no inside info on this deal to know for sure, but I've worked in the past at a different big cloud provider and later at a big customer of that cloud provider.)

That's definitely possible. I have no direct knowledge of the agreement, but it's one of those things that will get sussed out later--I suspect that the precise nature of the agreement will be gone over in detail.

That doesn't actually allege there are deeper ties. It's a pretty standard corporate PR piece about $SUPPLIER providing $SERVICE to $BIG_CUSTOMER, that $SUPPLIER can turn around and shop to other $PROSPECTIVE_CUSTOMERs as evidence of their ability to handle their needs. The company I work for puts this kind of PR out all the time, and no one thinks that it's a conspiracy to shut out all other competitors to $BIG_CUSTOMER.

On the other hand: the larger Twitter is, the easier it is for them to bargain hard with Amazon. A world with multiple competing Twitter-like services is potentially better for Amazon's bottom line.

That's a shame, because Greenwald and other contrarian writers have been the only ones consistently right the last few years with regards to Russiagate and other "emotional" headline issues.

Greenwald has actually been consistently wrong on quite a lot on that topic - mentioned quite a few places on the Wikipedia article actually.

I should stress that some partisan democrats have also been just as wrong, but Greenwald is just making it up to downplay what did actually happen.

To anyone who hasn't, please go and read the Wiki article on it - it's very detailed and clears up a lot of frankly worrying narratives I see on this website that are frankly a little disappointing considering the average reader is usually quite fastidious with technology.

> it was largely done on Facebook

That could be true, I don't know, but Parler was certainly hosting some violent real-time threats: https://twitter.com/slpng_giants/status/1347190280492089344

The guy in the fur hat was arrested and had a Parler.

This isn't hard. The majority of people arrested had Parler accounts -- it's everywhere.

> The guy in the fur hat was arrested and had a Parler.

I can't find evidence of this. Could you share your evidence?

Greenwald did significant research here and said he found no active users from those arrested:

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1348619731734028293

Glenn is either terrible at research or lying. https://twitter.com/azforeman/status/1348648808390008832?s=2...

Google “baked alaska parler”. It’s literally on the first page of results.

Thanks for the image. Do you know if the account was active or unused? I guess that's why Glenn said "were active users" and not "were users".

Hard to tell now that it’s down. But I find it pretty hard to trust him on this. One, it’s been fairly well documented that people were organizing the attack on Parler [1]. And two, as I mentioned elsewhere in the thread, there’s the obvious loophole that many who participated in the attack simply haven’t been arrested at all.

[1] https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2021/01/08/far-right-ins...

Also, here are some screen grabs of Kevin Greeson, who likely would have been arrested, but had a heart attack from what I have heard termed "insurrectionary excitement"

Also what does it matter if Jan 6 was not planned on parler? Jan 17th and inauguration shenanigans were being planned there until the site got yanked.

https://www.dailydot.com/debug/man-who-died-capitol-riot-par...

Glenn is hiding behind the "were arrested" phrasing, so despite the fact that baked alaska has a parler account and was literally livestreaming from the capital he doesn't count in Glenn's opinion as he hasn't been arrested yet.

What Glenn is saying is technically true, but also complete garbage. It's meant to fool people who can't do the minimum levels of research.

https://www.insider.com/washington-dc-protest-livestream-bak...

Ah yes, good point. I mentioned that elsewhere in the thread… but I guess I forgot when I started doing my own research, because the notion that you could livestream your participation in a terrorist attack at the Capitol and not get arrested immediately is absolutely bananas.

I hope Baked Alaska is arrested.

How many protesters arrested in the 2020 Summer protests had a twitter account?

I bet they also have Facebook accounts though. I bet they even have Gmail. They might even have Amazon and Ebay accounts.

Hard to confirm at the moment with Parler gone, but all the stories I've found seem to indicate he was mostly active on Twitter.

I think a more interesting (and neutral) approach for Greenwald to take would be to show that all of these prominent figures were most likely active on ALL social media platforms, yet only Parler has been singled out.

>> The majority of people arrested had Parler accounts -- it's everywhere.

Do you want to bet on what percentage of them own Smart Phones? I would wager 100%.

This is a pretty weasely argument from Glenn. Many of the people who invaded the Capitol weren’t arrested, period.

Sympathy for white supremacy within law enforcement is its own thorny issue, but we certainly shouldn’t let it deter us from taking action against places we know domestic terrorists plan their attacks.

> Do you know how many of the people arrested in connection with the Capitol invasion were active users of Parler? Zero

Conspiracy theories aside Parler wasn’t removed in relation to involvement with the capital invasion. They got booted off for poor moderation - repeatedly not being willing to do anything about illegal/hate content and the increase in number of complaints.

I don’t think Amazon or Apple (and to a lesser extent Google) can be viewed as competitors to Parler in any material way.

The claim that not a single person had a Parler account is trivially refutable.

https://twitter.com/azforeman/status/1348648808390008832/pho...

If he didn't bother to look at a famous person like the "QAnon Shaman", why does the rest of this claim stand to scrutiny?

Ironically, Glenn Greenwald is one of the few people who has blocked me on Twitter.

You mean the same Glenn Greenwald who said Authoritarianism in US has nothing do with Trump? [1]

[1] https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-threat-of-authoritarian...

Either Greenwald is correct, or he isn't. His opinion on non-factual things should have no bearing on that.

He isn't correct.

One's opinion has a very profound bearing on how he interprets and report on facts.

Facts should be independently verifiable.

Verify away. But facts are nothing more than isolated points. In my reading of Greenwald, he (usually) selects the facts that push his narrative. So verifying his facts is meaningless in the context of establishing the veracity of his broader claims. You need more facts than what he presents to see the full picture. And then his narrative usually falls appart.

This Glen Greebwald who "quit" in protest to his false Hunter Biden witch hunt?

The guy lost all credibility pushing that fake bullshit story so far he lost his job at his own news org.

https://nypost.com/2020/10/29/glenn-greenwald-quits-the-inte...

Hunter Biden is under investigation.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/12/09/poli...

Update: replaced link with a more relevant one

Yes, Hunter Biden is under investigation. But the investigation Glenn wrote about was separate, and a transparent fraud.

If the allegations about hunters laptop were transparently fraudulent, why do the gmail originated messages pass DKIM validation?

> If the allegations about hunters laptop were transparently fraudulent, why do the gmail originated messages pass DKIM validation?

The refusal to release the full messages with complete headers was a point of contention in the original reporting of this story. If enough information was released, to let the public inspect the messages and verify the DKIM signatures themselves, this is a new development that goes beyond what was originally reported and alleged.

Have the full messages been released to the public so this can be verified?

https://github.com/robertdavidgraham/hunter-dkim

It's not a very new development, but most or all mention of it was removed on many platforms including on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24942678

> https://github.com/robertdavidgraham/hunter-dkim

That appears to be one single email with limited context. The README.md in that repo outright states that the context for the email is absent and does not necessarily provide concrete proof of any specific narrative:

> ... Remember that while the email is validated, the context isn't. It's possible this reflects a secret meeting to conspire with Vice President Biden. Or, it's possible the guy attended one of the many Washington D.C. social functions whereby people shake hands with politicians and exchange pleasantries. As Richelieu is claimed to have said "Give me six words by the most honest of men and I'll find something to hang him by". Give me an email dump from the most honest of persons, and I'll pull one out of context to hang them in the court of social media. ...

> ... I personally have many doubts about where this email came from, and the overall "narrative" they are trying to push. Regardless, I can validate the basic facts about this email.

Are there any more emails with full headers?

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