Law enforcement scrutiny drives U.S. extremists into internet’s dark corners
WASHINGTON - Shortly after rampaging Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, a fan of the president posted a message on the pro-donald Trump website Thedonald.win. Inspired by the mob's attempt to stop lawmakers from confirming President-elect Joe Biden's electoral win, user CONN_WYNN said in an allcaps message, replete with an expletive, that it was “TIME TO LEAVE THE KEYBOARD” and “FIGHT FOR MY...COUNTRY.”
Two days later, agents from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation's San Francisco field office came calling, according to another post by CONN_WYNN on the same website.
“PRO TIP: Think before you post. They are watching. I learned the hard way,” wrote the user on Sunday alongside a photograph of a business card from the agents.
A spokesman for the FBI'S San Francisco office said he could not provide any details about the reported interaction or confirm whether agents actually paid a visit to the person who posted that message. But “if he has our business card and said he was visited, I'm pretty sure we visited him,” the spokesman said.
Before the Capitol attack, such a post may not have elicited a follow-up visit. But in the aftermath of the riot, which left five people dead, federal law enforcement agencies have intensified their scrutiny of extremist chatter online, activity that officials warn could be early warning signals of planned attacks around Biden's inauguration in Washington on Jan. 20.
“You don't want to be the ones to have FBI agents knocking on your door at 6 a.m.,” Director Christopher Wray said on Thursday during a televised briefing with Vice President Mike Pence. “Anybody who plots or attempts violence in the coming week should count on a visit.”
For months, far-right extremists have been openly posting their threats on public sites. Now, wary of surveillance and amid a crackdown by social media, some are shifting their online communications to private chats or lesser known platforms that could make those threats harder to find.
Several social media websites that are popular havens for far-right views have closed, crashed or cracked down on violent rhetoric over the past week. For example, Apple and Amazon suspended the social media site Parler from their respective App Store and web hosting service, saying it had not taken adequate measures to prevent the spread of posts inciting violence.
That has pushed some users to more private platforms such as Telegram, the Dubaibased messaging app, and lesser-known social media sites like Mewe.
U.S. downloads of Telegram from Apple's App Store and from Google Play rose to 1.2 million in the week after the Capitol assault, a 259 per cent increase over the previous week, according to Sensor Tower, a data analytics firm. Roughly 829,000 U.S. users downloaded Mewe in the week after the attack, a 697 per cent increase, the firm found.
David Westreich, a Mewe spokesman, said the company has frequent membership spikes and that “only a small fraction” of the hundreds of thousands of public groups on the platform dealt with politics. Westreich said Mewe's terms of service were “designed to keep out lawbreakers, haters, bullies, harassment [and] violence inciters.”
Telegram did not respond to a request for comment.
The FBI received nearly 100,000 “digital media tips” about potential unrest related to the election and Biden's inauguration, an official told reporters on Tuesday, and has pleaded for more information from the American public.