Capitol Attack Was Months in the Making on Facebook

It's hard to overstate how poorly they managed this. This is something a special investigation should be commissioned out by congress/the DOJ.

[1] https://www.npr.org/2020/06/01/867532070/trumps-unannounced-...

Or massively & publicly fail... if we’re trading conspiracy theories.

Far-right terror was taken seriously after the OKC bombing. But the far-right terrorist threat had been steadily increasing for three years at that point. Ruby Ridge and the Waco Siege contributed to a surge in far-right militias and other terrorist groups. It took someone driving a truck bomb and killing hundreds of people (in an attempt to spark a race war) to take far-right terrorism seriously.

Look at this case for example. He has left many threatening voicemails to congress members over several years, including while under probation, and the FBI just told him to knock it off without arresting him. So he kept doing it. They only finally arrested him after the terrorist attack on the capitol.

>According to the complaint, Capriotti repeatedly called multiple Congressional offices in Washington, D.C., between October 2019 and January 2020 and left “disturbing, anonymous messages” that often included “profanity along with derogatory remarks concerning the race, religion, political affiliation, or physical appearance” of some members of Congress.

>FBI agents located Capriotti and interviewed him last February, according to the complaint, which states that Capriotti admitted making the calls but insisted he was “just f---ing with them” and “didn’t mean any ill will.”

>The agents advised Capriotti to stop making the calls, but phone records showed he continued to do so between February and November 2020. A series of voicemails Capriotti allegedly made to Congressional offices in November and December were then detailed in the complaint.

https://news.wttw.com/2021/01/12/chicago-heights-man-charged...

https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2021/1/12/22227466/feds-a...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dhs-domestic-terror-warning-ang...

In my city, BLM demonstrators - or at least people purporting to be part of BLM - declared several city blocks an autonomous zone. The zone's security forces subsequent killed several people (among them, ironically, an unarmed black 16 year old). It took the city 3 weeks to clear out this zone, and it was done without lethal force.

By comparison, the people occupying the Capitol were removed in a matter of hours including employing lethal force.

The Capitol protests were met with more leniency than some BLM demonstrations, but less than others.

> According to an accounting by the American Bail Coalition, verified by The Fact Checker with a review of Hennepin County jail records, all but three of the 170 people arrested during the protests between May 26 and June 2 were released from jail within a week. Of the 167 released, only 10 had to put up a monetary bond to be released; in most cases, the amounts were nominal, such as $78 or $100. In fact, 92 percent of those arrested had to pay no bail — and 29 percent of those arrested did not face charges. (The American Bail Coalition is a trade group of insurance companies who profit from underwriting bail bonds.)

[1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/politics...

> The judge declared a mistrial in December and ruled on Monday that prosecutors could not retry the case, arguing that the US attorney’s office had willfully withheld evidence and engaged in misconduct.

What they can't survive is groups of thugs that don't like the result of an election, and go off to physically prevent its results from being honored. That is unprecedented.

I can count six DC-area thousand+ employee firms that provided grief counseling in response. And as a reminder, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism - even if a subset of people implemented violence with political ends in mind (breaking in, beating innocent people, attempting to take hostages, all in the name of overturning a legitimate election), at the very least, that subset meets the precise definition of "terrorists."

> No, this wasn't "our 9/11."

The Capitol was breached as part of a coordinated and failed plot. Last time this happened was 1814.

> I have no doubt a few of the rioters really were planning terrible deeds, and the violence and property damage is inexcusable.

Yes, using the rest of the people in the crowd as human shields, but nonetheless:

> But most of these people just seem to be caught up in the moment -- taking selfies and LARPing around the capitol after hours.

This isn't a valid defense to any crime literally ever.

This doesn’t seem to be true. Several elected officials have expressed fear they or their family would be harmed by members of the far right, most notably Rep. Pete Meijer (R-MI), who was one of the few house republicans to certify the results of the election:

“I had colleagues who, when it came time to recognize reality and vote to certify Arizona and Pennsylvania in the Electoral College, they knew in their heart of hearts that they should’ve voted to certify, but some had legitimate concerns about the safety of their families,”

He also said “That was what weighed on the colleague in mind’s conscience, and the last thing that that individual said to me, concern about the safety of that individual’s family, if that individual voted to certify the election... That is where the rhetoric has brought us. That is the degree of fear that’s been created.”

In Facebook comments, one rioter wrote: “Congress needs to hear glass breaking, doors being kicked in.” “We get our President or we die,” they added. “NOTHING else will achieve this goal.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/11/people-will-try-to-kill-us-s...

https://www.vox.com/2021/1/13/22229052/capitol-hill-riot-int...

Sure seems like terrorism to me.

Now, do I think we need increased surveillance? Absolutely not, it was largely planned in public on Facebook. We just need an FBI that takes this movement’s threats more seriously. Exposing that some far right elements act like terrorists is one way of calling attention to the seriousness of the problem.

Edit: I also think the appeal that they might somehow treat BLM protestors even worse is not worth considering much. I don’t identify with any “side” that uses the threat of physical violence against elected officials to change their vote, even if they were to do it for a “good cause”. I don’t want that to be an available tool for BLM or anyone either.

I think it would be a stretch to call all the rioters terrorists, but I think a lot of them would fit any reasonable definition and they were well-organized, intentional, and numerous. Even if a terrorist attack is unsuccessful or does not kill or injure a large number of people that doesn't make it not terrorism. And I think there was a real risk that members of Congress could have been kidnapped, injured, or killed if things had gone a little bit differently.

Compare that with the tiny Capitol Police force guarding the Capitol building while one of the most important state functions was in progress, with much of the executive branch succession and the legislative branch in attendance. National Guard troops were denied both in advance and for a while during the ensuing riot, citing concerns about “the optics.”

Any meaningful discussion of protest response and overreach, potential or actual, has to account for that disparity.

As you said, some rioters were “planning terrible deeds,” which increasingly clearly means “kidnapping or executing congresspeople and the VP for not keeping DJT in power.” This raises the issue to the level of sedition (organized incitement to rebellion) and insurrection (actual acts of violence against the state or its officers).

Maybe “terrorism” doesn’t broadly apply here, and it’s better to refer to the capitol invaders as “insurrectionists.” Trump, the other government supporters of the protest, and any private backers should be labeled as “seditionists.” I am less likely to push for a “terrorism” label if I can be confident that the other two labels will be applied and prosecuted as such.

We still talk about the Clinton impeachment today, and the acts that precipitated it. Students of history still study the Andrew Johnson impeachment. You're being naive if you think an unprecedented, record, second impeachment of a president will be forgotten that quickly.

At the capital, that also seems to me like a protest that got out of hand.

In each case, the opposing side seems convinced of much more malicious intent. I think that is the worst part - everyone is deeply offended when their opposition does X, but they support their own flavor of X when done by their side.

“Terrorism” isn't an actual crime you can be charged for regarding acts within the US (terrorism outside the US is a specific federal crime, as is material support for terrorism—the latter of which references knowing support for a wide range of crimes under the ambit of terrorism, a number of which seem not implausible to be justifiably charged against participants in the capitol insurrection, such as conspiring to kill or kidnap the President, Vice President, any member of Congress, etc.)

> If this becomes our new bar for terrorism charges then don’t be surprised when you wind up on a no fly list and get a knock on your door after attending a protest.

The “no-fly” list doesn't require being charged with anything, anyhow, much less “terrorism” specifically,

Pick one

It has definitely attracted an alt-right crowd, but “specifically built to enable terrorism” is some ridiculous cable-news-level propaganda.

I’d much rather this conversation be about free speech and where lines can be drawn — and it bothers me that platforms can be taken down everywhere because of an unrelated group that happened to use them for something horrible. What about Signal? It’s been getting lots of popularity recently — what if it comes out that the terrorists are on Signal now, and there’s nothing they can do to be moderated because of the encryption. Will Signal be taken down for refusing to add a backdoor?

I create a new social network startup. Early on, most of the people it attracts are those banned from Twitter and Facebook - since they don't have a lot of other options. In addition to normal social network things, they post some questionable and inciting content. Since I'm a startup, I have a small moderation team and no fancy AI moderation so most of it slips through the cracks. Is my social network "built to enable terrorism"?

The political situation we find ourselves in, even though it was allowed to fester for years on established social media platforms, seems ideal for securing a monopoly for those same platforms. How could a competitor get a foot in the door without being accused of catering to extremists?

Content still slips through the cracks on Facebook too. Parler had a moderation system in place, although it was jury-driven and not centralized.

I used to use Parler before the ban and I don't remembering seeing any calls for violence. I'm not saying it doesn't exist because to be fair I wouldn't of been in those circles anyway, but it seemed quite tame in contrast to what I see from the average person I follow on Twitter where I regularly see people posting violent Tweets about Trump, his supporters, and even tweets supportive of the violent protests we saw earlier in the year. It's only been in recent weeks that those calling for violence throughout 2020 are finally denouncing violence.

Everyone who is acting like Parler was this really radical place just didn't use it IMO. I think people are clearly right when they say this about platforms Bitchute and some of the Reddit alternatives, but as far as I could tell the content on Parler was just like every other social network, just a little more conservative leaning.

If Apple is that concerned they should ban the Saidit app where there is Jewish conspiracies and far-right content everywhere. I strongly suspect they're lying to you when they say it was because of a lack of moderation. Just like how Twitter allows Richard Spencer to remain on their platform while claiming Trump has gone too far. Evidence would suggest they don't target extremism, they target popular conservative commenters and platforms.

So I don't think there's any good reason to disagree with you.

At best, Facebook has prioritised "engagement" - i.e. ad revenue - over unacceptable extremism. At worst Facebook is knowingly complicit in the politics and in the polarisation that is being generated.

It would be impossible to know which of those is true without access to internal records. But there should at least be an investigation asking these questions.

And not just of Facebook, but of all the social tech and media giants.

No, Facebook devotes significant resources to moderation and makes good faith attempts to uphold their policies. Parler did not. That is the difference.

"If the negative externalities are the same in both cases, then this isn't an excuse."

No one is trying to rid the world of all negative externalities, only to make reasonable efforts to mitigate them. There may never be a perfectly moderated social media platform, just as there may never be a perfectly safe highway, and that is fine.

The Internet of the 1990's is still alive by the way. Anyone can put up their message on a website provided by a host of their choice.

Parler reportedly had a community "jury pool" system in which Parler users could volunteer to review reports for bad content and could decide whether to leave the messages up or not.

It's got to happen to white folk in the US before anything will change.

Moderation is inherently an after-the-fact phenomenon. People are going to do unpredictable things, sometimes bad.

Can someone post a link to something we could like that’s an objectively harmless right-wing meme?

Whether they have the ability to moderate or not is irrelevant. If you can't afford the obligations of a publisher, don't be a publisher.

Ariel Atkins - Chicago BLM leader:

"That is reparations,” Ariel Atkins, an organizer, told NBC Chicago. “Anything they wanted to take, they can take it"

She said that about a riot in which 13 police officers were injured, and at least one rioter fired at police.

This is just one example of many where BLM leaders justified (or glorified) violence.

Where are all these “nazis” you say that word a lot. “My group” I didnt know I was in a group. You certainly seem to assume a lot and form knee jerk conclusions. Actually proving my point quite well.

This was the most bothersome part to me. Trump talked about wanting to punch protestors, but tip-toed around actual Nazi's supporting him and coming to events. He would eventually denounce violence or hate after being prodded, but never seemed to be able to state plainly if someone is a Nazi, then GTFO.

Personally, if I'm in a group and literal Nazi's are also allowed in the group, that's not a group I'm going to remain a part of.

Isn't the east precinct a government building?

>And who were the armed protestors, what were they armed with?

Raz the Warlord of CHAZ giving out assault rifles:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/raz-simone-guns/

>And keep in mind that the SPD did considerably more violence to a larger group over that time.

How many people were shot within the protest zone by occupants of CHAZ versus police over that time? By my count, it seems 5:0

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Hill_Autonomous_Zone...

Is it though? Seems to me you're advocating feelings matter more than facts. I believe it would be more accurate to say "police in the United States are killing people for stupid reasons, which is true." while keeping in mind that those incidents are the exception, not the norm. The police shot 28 unarmed people in 2019. On a population of 320 million.

>This paper explores racial differences in police use of force. On non-lethal uses of force, blacks and Hispanics are more than fifty percent more likely to experience some form of force in interactions with police. Adding controls that account for important context and civilian behavior reduces, but cannot fully explain, these disparities. On the most extreme use of force – officer-involved shootings – we find no racial differences in either the raw data or when contextual factors are taken into account.

https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/fryer/files/empirical_anal...

>We create a comprehensive database of officers involved in fatal shootings during 2015 and predict victim race from civilian, officer, and county characteristics. We find no evidence of anti-Black or anti-Hispanic disparities across shootings, and White officers are not more likely to shoot minority civilians than non-White officers. Instead, race-specific crime strongly predicts civilian race. This suggests that increasing diversity among officers by itself is unlikely to reduce racial disparity in police shootings.

https://archive.is/Xppla

>In 2019 police officers fatally shot 1,004 people, most of whom were armed or otherwise dangerous. African-Americans were about a quarter of those killed by cops last year (235), a ratio that has remained stable since 2015. That share of black victims is less than what the black crime rate would predict, since police shootings are a function of how often officers encounter armed and violent suspects. In 2018, the latest year for which such data have been published, African-Americans made up 53% of known homicide offenders in the U.S. and commit about 60% of robberies, though they are 13% of the population. The police fatally shot nine unarmed blacks and 19 unarmed whites in 2019, according to a Washington Post database, down from 38 and 32, respectively, in 2015. The Post defines “unarmed” broadly to include such cases as a suspect in Newark, N.J., who had a loaded handgun in his car during a police chase. In 2018 there were 7,407 black homicide victims. Assuming a comparable number of victims last year, those nine unarmed black victims of police shootings represent 0.1% of all African-Americans killed in 2019. By contrast, a police officer is 18½ times more likely to be killed by a black male than an unarmed black male is to be killed by a police officer.

https://archive.is/MIoYJ

Which gives me a bit of whiplash when I see many of those people outraged that the Capitol Police didn’t just start shooting indiscriminately into the crowd on 1/6.

Protests are not necessarily “newsworthy”; however, that search interest would track media stirring up news before elections seems likely.

Further, (and I say this as a Minneapolitan) the significant protests of this summer were very clearly and obviously precipitated by real world events, not astroturfed protest crowds.

Just because one event raises the temperature doesn't mean another event also doesn't. Saying ACAB and defund the police seems like it would also raise the temperature.

David Dorn was a retired black police officer killed.

Shay Mikalonis was shot in the head, but survived. He is paralyzed from below the neck.

And to add. The rhetoric has likely been causing the increase in cop killings this year. As of July it was up 28%. https://abcnews.go.com/US/police-officers-killed-surge-28-ye...

I don't think it's about individually high-quality sources as much as it is about how you take in information. Don't consider yourself to understand an issue until you've heard a compelling argument on both sides, or have thoroughly convinced yourself that you've adequately searched through diverse enough fora. Don't read anything, from Alex Jones's Facebook page to the frontpage of the NYT, without spot-checking sources, reading studies, etc. There's no filter that ensures that journalists are the best humanity has to offer: just like all humans, plenty of them are incompetent or dishonest, and beyond that groupthink exists in cultures that get as insular and self-aggrandizing as journalism's. Correctly combine a variety of low-quality signals and you can get a really high-quality signal.

That being said, some general recommendations for individual sources are (in ascending order of obscurity) The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, and Marginal Revolution (economist Tyler Cowen's blog). I find they do a better job than most of:

1) representing different opinions intellectually honestly

2) being thorough in their reasoning and analysis

and/or

3) being fairly high-quality

For example, take the comment that you originally replied to, which asserted "Susan Rosenberg literally bombed the Capitol in 1983 and now serves as vice chair of the board of directors of Thousand Currents, a "non-profit foundation that sponsors the fundraising and does administrative work for the Black Lives Matter global network, among other clients.""

That is obviously a great soundbite that seems tailor made for the "the left ignores the terrorism on their side" argument. But on the Wikipedia page for Susan Rosenberg, you can see what her level of involvement was, see how she was punished (she served 16 years), see what she's been doing since she was released from prison, and follow lots of links to original sources, like the tax return for Thousand Currents.

Snopes is also a great source for stuff like this: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/blm-terrorist-rosenberg/. Again, you don't have to agree with the simple "true/false/mixture" checkbox Snopes puts on their stories. Just read the article, which always has tons of well-researched factual info, and make up your mind for yourself.

My main point is that whenever you see some soundbite or statistic on Twitter, Facebook or HN, it was often taken out of context in order to make an argument. It's usually pretty easy to use Wikipedia as a starting point to find out more about that context.

And to be clear, while I obviously have a point of view, my main point is that you shouldn't take anyone's opinions at face value - the Internet actually makes it pretty easy to find original sources.

BLM 2015 didn't quite meet this tradeoff, and was in some cases explicitly against race-blind solutions to police violence and in favor of pseudoscience like IATs (at which point their detachment from reality points them in the opposite direction from managing to do good). BLM 2020 is pretty different in character, and while it still has its stupidities, I reckon that it's a decent enough direction that it may lead to some positive change.

The point I'm trying to make with this winding comment is that you can still consume an unhealthy amount of biased media without delving into the levels of Qanon- expand your horizons and try other sources!

I personally even make it a point to read FOX and r/conservative once in a while through a critical lens to see what exactly the right is consuming.

I dunno... For the most part, my close friends are too intelligent to have this tendency (likely not a coincidence, but implicit assortative matching), but I have a couple close friends and many less-close friends who aren't. It seems to bring them a lot of emotional pain and frustration.

If your worldview is effectively religious, the heretics who blaspheme against the One True Flawless Way by disagreeing with you are reduced to actively-evil monsters. If you happen to live in a modern, pluralistic society instead of Reconquista Spain, this is a recipe for constant frothing fury at the tens of millions of people who don't share any given viewpoint you may hold. To my eyes, this is wayyy more uncomfortable than always being the person disagreeing,even if minorly, with the groupthink session.

Regarding loneliness, the part of my brain that enjoys the seduction of blind, rabid group membership seems to be missing (eg I've never been a pro sports fan either, despite being a fairly avid sportsman in the past). I can understand how this would be lonely for many, but... I dunno, being a bad person is fun, I don't think that's much of an excuse for doing it.

Except it hasn't been. You just don't want to listen to what people are actually saying because it's easier to argue against a strawman.

FWIW lots of people on the left do the same thing. So I guess you're in good company?

We want to pretend that this is all Trump’s fault- but we’re unable to recognize that it’s Trump who is a symptom of a systemic failure of logic and reason.

Vandalism, trespassing, arson, assault, and so on can and should be prosecuted because they are crimes. Full stop. The ideological motivation of the perpetrators should be irrelevant with respect to prosecuting the crimes.

I do realize that the impact and repercussions of the events is certainly a point for debate, but that seems orthogonal to the immediate and critical goal of keeping the peace.

... who were trying to get an election overturned at the behest of POTUS. Motive matters, even if they were too disorganized to stand a chance.

What happens when you take over multiple city blocks for a few weeks and don't allow any government agencies to do their jobs? That should also have reprecussions...but it didn't.

Not sure how she has paid for her crimes, and why her case of known crimes and casualties should not be pointed?

I really think the entire prison system needs to be rethought from the ground up though. It doesn't make sense that excons carry this weight with them throughout their life, failing background checks. If someone's been released from prison, they should be done with their punishment. Period.

In an email obtained by BuzzFeed News, an AWS Trust and Safety team told Parler Chief Policy Officer Amy Peikoff that the calls for violence propagating across the social network violated its terms of service. Amazon said it was unconvinced that the service’s plan to use volunteers to moderate calls for violence and hate speech would be effective.

“Recently, we’ve seen a steady increase in this violent content on your website, all of which violates our terms," the email reads. "It’s clear that Parler does not have an effective process to comply with the AWS terms of service.”

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/johnpaczkowski/amazon-p...

I do listen to, and read, mainstream media (and others), and I haven't seen that explanation. I've seen lots of people on the right attributing it vaguely to the MSM to lead into arguments against it, but that's the only place I've seen that explanation of the deplatforming, rather than the failure to moderate when unacceptable content was identified.

> in fact you would get the impression that the planning only occurred there.

Again, no, I've seen plenty of references to planning elsewhere, social media and otherwise, in the MSM. Again, this is a frequent thing I've seen people with a right-wing media preference attribute without detail to the MSM, but not actually seen in the MSM.

That’s a good point. It’s not like Trump’s holdings weren’t fed a line of patrons while he was in office. Seems odd to leave out the most prominent and recent example.

Additionally, as of tomorrow the Republicans are irrelevant when it comes to the selecting a party to lobby. Democrats control the house, the senate, and the presidency. Keep their coffers lined and you keep the regulation at bay.

there I explicitly stated what you are insinuating with your simple question.

his/her point still stands; famous politicians gain wealth from said fame. can we stay on track here?

People like Trump and Bush can barely deliver a speech or speak coherently, who is paying to hear them attempt it??

Trump had to shelter in the bunker, but he was just a coward, and the people were just demanding justice.

> Then came darkness, and with it, another night of mayhem. In the park, protesters faced the familiar pop, pop, pop of pepper bullets and stinging clouds of tear gas meant to push back hundreds of them as they tried, again and again, to break through the police barricades set up around President Trump’s home.

> Later, American flags and parked cars and buildings were lit ablaze — including St. John’s Church, a historic landmark opened in 1816 and attended by every president since James Madison. Firefighters quickly extinguished the basement fire, which police said was intentionally set.

Protesters then, as on Jan 6th, tried to entice officers to take their side;

> A black officer, according to witnesses, briefly took a knee in solidarity with the protesters, who cheered.

> Not long after, another officer made an announcement on a megaphone: “Attention: We will continue to move back unless you break the police line.”

> And again, cheering from the protesters, many of whom appeared to want the officers to join them rather than fight with them.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/31/fires-light-...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/31/us/politics/washington-dc...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-braces-for-third-day...