Parler Users Breached Deep Inside U.S. Capitol Building, GPS Data Shows
gizmodo.com
gizmodo.com
When I look at the Parler situation, I think most likely poor management/decisions were the greatest contributing factor to their current predicament.
The management probably didn't think they had a hate-speech problem until it was too late. As such, they didn't have the systems in place to deal with it, and the systems they were going to put in place were going to be tempory (as highlighted by Apple's response to their app modernisation plan).
You can filter down from there, but even if you mistakenly think that fifty percent of Parler users just liked the idea of free speech platforms enough that they used a site frequented by the neo-nazis despite all that, it's likely that only the violent insurrectionists happened to be the ones in the crowd, and then in the capitol building, posting things to Parler as they went.
Like, having a panel of 5 human moderators "vote" on every piece of flagged content? As if that could even scale. It was never their intent to moderate in the first place, but rather to pull large segments of our political system into the very position we're now seeing -- namely, open conflict.
Sorry, no.
It does seem that the userbase overall skewed far right.
This kind of by its own nature drags a platform in a specific direction based on where it started. It had a starting culture of being the alternative platform for conservative voices, and so over time that moderation technique would just push it further in that direction.
For comparison I go on Fox News web site from time to time largely out of morbid fascination, but I don’t consider myself part of their audience because I don’t find any of it actually valuable or useful. And I say that as a self identified conservative, albeit a British one.
It's usually pretty good on general news and opinion, but it's pretty right wing and regularly publishes manipulated statistics and disinformation on climate change and EU issues. So it's like Fox on some specific topics.
The leading left wing paper is the Guardian (Sometimes referred to as the Gauniad due to it having pretty poor proofreading back in the day). It's way too leftie for me on opinion, it's grown a bit of a woke tendency, but is good on science and international news.
On TV, I'd say Sky News isn't _that_ far off Fox. Extremely selective on their guests and very partisan in their correspondents.
I think all of those are reasonable takes except for on Corbyn. The Guardian didn't dislike Corbyn due to a lack of Leftyness, but because for all the fact I disagree with them politically, I can at least recognise that they have some standards and integrity.
Corbyn wasn't exactly a Left Trump, but not all that far off with the antisemitism, and sucking up to the fascist theocrats in Iran and Hezbollah, naked opportunism, etc. I wish more people on the right in the US had stood up for their principles in that way over the last 4 years.
There's nothing wrong with Parler users or anyone else per-se.
There is, however, a problem with violent insurrectionists.
It's unfortunate that a small group of people planned and executed a violent attack on the seat of US government, although unfortunate is nowhere near a strong enough term for their acts.
I don't know you, but if you don't participate in violent acts to support your political agenda and respect the rule of law, I have no problem with you.
Assuming that's true, even if (and I don't know one way or another about that) I vehemently disagree with your policy perspectives, I will defend your right to hold and advocate for those perspectives. Because that's what a free society is all about.
On the other hand, those that believe it's okay to use violence, lies and intimidation to achieve their political goals have no place in a free society and should be shunned, ridiculed, and if they perpetrate acts of violence, punished.
I'd posit that anyone who believes in our constitutional system of government and the rule of law would agree with all of the above.
In the 1770s George Washington and ilk were insurrectionists. Now we look at them as revolutionaries. Do people who fight for change only become revolutionary when it’s an argument you agree with? Are you an insurrectionist if you fight the government to the death (literally) for what you believe in?
Obvious disclaimer: I don’t hold a candle to this fight in either direction but can empathize with both sides
They don't. The terms are synonymous.
>Obvious disclaimer: I don’t hold a candle to this fight in either direction but can empathize with both sides
Why is that obvious?
And as to the idea that you can "empathize with both sides," Who do you think those "sides" are?
They are most certainly not those of the two major political parties in the US.
They are not even those who consider themselves "conservative" or "liberal."
In reality, one side supports our constitutional form of government and the rule of law. The other side despises the rule of law and seeks to use violence, intimidation and lies to destabilize my home in an attempt to seize power.
The former are 98%+ of my countrymen (many of us disagree about a great many things, but not about our constitutional republic and the rule of law), and the latter are a tiny minority who wishes to impose their will on everyone else.
If you see things differently, I'd love to hear your arguments.
A reasonable question in the abstract, but in this case the distinction is rather simple: 1776 was people revolting against a king to create a democracy. What we saw this month was quite the opposite - trying to undo democracy (i.e. negate the results of popular vote).
For contrast, black people were claiming police abuse decades ago and the country turned a cheek towards it. Police abuse increased until technology put the power back in our hands. It’s very hard to look at where the protestors are coming from but it is very easy to dismiss it because of status quo.
Just a warning, and my downvotes are proving my point. No one wants to talk about it, they want to sweep ideas they don’t agree with under the rug. Just like my police encounters in the late 90s.
I’m sure at one point in your life you have said “my vote doesn’t matter, the president will be picked regardless of my input”. That’s what these people are upset about, and the solution seems about as attainable as politicians cracking down on abusive cops in the 1990s
Your downvotes aren't proving a point. Trump's and his supporters' complaints about the election were given extensive public airing but none of them have been sustainable under closer scrutiny, and many claims about procedure, constitutional law and so forth have ben flat wrong. I don't understand how you can claim Trump supporters don't feel listened to when there has been a non-stop barrage of accusations from them over the last 2 months. Why don't they listen to the opinions that come out of the courts?
Would you agree at this point in time the two events are similar? A bogey man messing with the election that was only proven after the fact? I don’t care about trump losing and you should not either. You should be concerned that a lot of people think there is election fraud and as such the American government has a duty to investigate. Democracy?
Also AGPS only provides satellite ephemeris, which enables a faster time to fix, not better accuracy.
Now, there doesn't seem to have been any path to victory for them, and that casts doubt on the rest of their judgment. But at least in the moment, they believed they were heroes.
Plenty of the rioters streamed themselves live on Youtube, Twitch, and Facebook, while shouting their own names on camera.
Some of them even had their work-badges and IDs displayed during the riots, and bragged about their "accomplishments" on Facebook publicly under their own name.
This standard ("does anyone feel unsafe") should always be used as a check against ones haywire common sense.
For example:
- Kavanaugh confirmation hearings: did people feel unsafe? No.
- AOC leading a take over of Pelosi's office: No, probably the opposite. People were likely laughing about it and mildly annoyed.
- Mobs of people ransacking the capitol? Yeah, people felt _terrified_, and multiple people died.
See the difference? There's non-violent peaceful protest, and there's threats of violence, or actual violence, that one can feel in their bones, and which color the situation and subsequent charges should events fall out of line with our tradition of protest. Though events can't be known ahead of time, it's fairly easy in retrospect to judge intent -- i.e, AOC didn't enter Pelosi's office dressed in tactical gear and holding zip ties, with a mob of angry "Squad" members calling for the Senate minority leader's death.
It's offensive to common sense and morally dubious to compare these things, or to even bring them up in this context.
No, maybe not, but perhaps there's something to be said when you look at the shirts people were wearing ("Camp Auschwitz") or the flags people were holding (Confederate, many), or the words people were speaking ("Hang Mike Pence!")?
> Is there any indication that the vast majority had any idea of the intentions and the contents of the pockets of those who sought to do harm
There's an enormous amount of testimony everywhere, in every major publication, on every news channel, about the feelings of those on the inside experiencing the mob enter from the outside. Your attempts to defend this are disingenuous.
This is entirely not true in the real world. When a prosecutor brings a charge against someone, all sorts of factors are taken into account, based on prior law. The charge of "menacing" is a great example. How about "making threatening statements"? Or any number of other obvious examples that rely on subjective interpretation within a context.
The topic is "what were these people thinking in taking these actions?" My reply was "there were similar actions in the past which resulted in trivial punishments." Would amending my reply to "there were similar actions in the past which resulted in trivial punishments and no one took seriously anyway" somehow have made the group that entered the Capitol less likely to have done so? If so, please explain.
> The precise locations of Parler users inside the building can be difficult to place. The coordinates do not reveal which floors they are on ... the coordinates themselves are only accurate up to an approximate distance of 12 yards (11 meters).
Some choice excerpts, which are even better in context so read the article:
> The narrative Glenn presents about his departure is teeming with distortions and inaccuracies — all of them designed to make him appear as a victim, rather than a grown person throwing a tantrum.
> it was he who was attempting to recycle the dubious claims of a political campaign — the Trump campaign — and launder them as journalism.
> We have the greatest respect for the journalist Glenn Greenwald used to be
> We have no doubt that Glenn will go on to launch a new media venture where he will face no collaboration with editors — such is the era of Substack and Patreon. In that context, it makes good business sense for Glenn to position himself as the last true guardian of investigative journalism and to smear his longtime colleagues and friends as partisan hacks.
[0] https://theintercept.com/2020/10/29/glenn-greenwald-resigns-...
"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."
The zero arrests comment probably is incorrect, but, does that take away from the larger point, especially with regards to the context of the nyt article?
Tl;dr: he made a lot of tweets on this subject. Cherry picking one part of one tweet doesn't say much about his overall point.
This "hypergrowth at all costs" mindset is pretty suffocating. There's plenty of niche sites that are successful without the need of trying to be the biggest in the world.
I recall him finding the most tenuous of reasons to defend Assad and Putin's conduct in Syria. It kept falling apart as the regime kept conducting further chemical weapons attacks. Everything could be dismissed as some grand imperialist plot against Assad. The goal posts moved dozens of times always in reaction to further news that detailed different aspects of the chemical weapons campaign.
Greenwald kept finding ways to dismiss the citizens on the ground. Because surely RT.com knows better.
He then kept dismissing the joint international investigation team while it was in the field. Because surely Assad's own press releases know better.
After awhile he deleted his Twitter timeline[1]. Greenwald is not a journalist when he carries forward narratives like this, he is an activist. Just like when he carried forward narratives from "Guccifer 2.0" aka Kremlin during the 2016 election. What he is doing here seems really similar to his conduct from that era. He thought he found -the thing- that exempts something he want to defend from ire. Now an entire narrative is build around it. His little personal fort.
I'll never be able to forgive Glenn for using his name on Twitter to beat down Syrians who were giving first hand testimony and video evidence. He engaged against them like they were his enemy, likely because they were the enemy of his favored narrative and biases. Disgusting.
Here is an archived version of his tweet[2]. You'll need it in time after he commits another purge when he moves onto the next indefensible right wing trope he feels like picking up.
And due to that, for many (including me in past) he is given trust and benefits of doubt other people don't. So I see parent comment quite relevant - the truth telling is matter of past.
How would he even know?