Trump supporters, rioters incited violence online
Thousands of President Donald Trump’s supporters and other rioters who stormed the Capitol on Wednesday as Congress prepared to formally declare Joe Biden president fomented the violence and chaos in the days leading up to the protest.
“We are seeing significant volumes of rhetoric online,” Daniel Jones, president of Advance Democracy, told USA TODAY. “And we’re seeing this rhetoric – fueled by President Trump’s voter fraud claims – across all social media platforms.”
One person asked on Twitter, “Whos running arms and ammo to dc for when the fun starts.”
Moderators of TheDonald, a message board formed after the group was banned from Reddit, ignored calls for violence, with one account urging: “Start shooting patriots. Kill these (expletive) traitors.”
Posts with calls for violence had 128,395 engagements as of 4:23 p.m. EST Wednesday, according to a report from Advance Democracy, a research organization that studies disinformation and extremism.
The tumult heightened scrutiny of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube for their role in serving as a megaphone for Trump.
On Twitter, between Jan. 1 and Jan. 6, 1,480 posts from QAnon-related accounts referenced Jan. 6 and contained violent terms or threats, Advance Democracy found.
“Today’s tragic attack on the U.S. Capitol is the result of a years-long process of online radicalization,” said Emerson Brooking, resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab and co-author of “LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media.” “President Trump lit the fuse. He has repeatedly used his social media accounts to spread falsehoods and to incite violence against American citizens.”
Facebook, Twitter and YouTube labeled and restricted some Trump posts but only late Wednesday began to remove some.
“The violent protests in the Capitol today are a disgrace,” Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone said in a statement. “We prohibit incitement and calls for violence on our platform. We are actively reviewing and removing any content that breaks these rules.”
Late Wednesday, Twitter removed three of the president's tweets in which he made claims of voter fraud. The company also will lock his Twitter account for 12 hours after he deletes the offending tweets. If Trump does not delete the posts, the account will remain locked, Twitter said.
On Parler, accounts connected to supporters of Trump, QAnon and farright anti-government group III%ers explicitly or implicitly call for violence, with some asserting Wednesday, “the war begins today.”