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What Parler Saw During the Attack on the Capitol

projects.propublica.org

11–20 of 45 posts

Re: What Parler Saw During the Attack on the Capitol

#11
Doesn't exactly look worthy of losing our collective freedom of speech and right to assemble over. A stark contrast over the story being pushed in the media.

Yet this event will be used as a scapegoat to push those very things in the near future.

Just know that any laws passed or precedents set will be used first on the "radical right", will undoubtedly be used on the anti-vax and conspiracy crowd but will eventually be used on the anti-war left, and then simply "dissidents".

If you haven't realized it yet, the wheels are turning to silence unapproved narratives forever. The media campaign just screams the phrase "manufacturing consent".

Re: What Parler Saw During the Attack on the Capitol

#12

Watch the video "12:16 p.m. • Around D.C." and you can clearly see content-aware deep fake filling of crowds to increase the appearance of their magnitude. The so-called "Parler dataset" is completely useless as anything but a curiosity with respect to examining the nature of emerging digital ground-truth and perception metrics. Nothing contained in it is verifiable, and in my opinion it would be wise to be very skep…

> you can clearly see

It's not clear to me, could you elaborate?

Re: What Parler Saw During the Attack on the Capitol

#13

Doesn't exactly look worthy of losing our collective freedom of speech and right to assemble over. A stark contrast over the story being pushed in the media. Yet this event will be used as a scapegoat to push those very things in the near future. Just know that any laws passed or precedents set will be used first on the "radical right", will undoubtedly be used on the anti-vax and conspiracy crowd but will eventually…

So it's not the people that participated in an seditious attack on the capital and the most cherished democratic process, the democratic choosing of the US president that are the problem here? They built gallows outside the capital, they screamed "hang Mike Pence" because he didn't literally attempt to end American democracy for them.

It's still "those other people who want to take our freedumbs away" that are the problem?

This feels a lot like the group of people whose first reaction to when a school gets massacred by yet another school shooting is, "My Second Amendment is going to be under attack now, this sucks!"

Re: What Parler Saw During the Attack on the Capitol

#14

Watch the video "12:16 p.m. • Around D.C." and you can clearly see content-aware deep fake filling of crowds to increase the appearance of their magnitude. The so-called "Parler dataset" is completely useless as anything but a curiosity with respect to examining the nature of emerging digital ground-truth and perception metrics. Nothing contained in it is verifiable, and in my opinion it would be wise to be very skep…

The lens of this camera certainly distorts at the edges or at distance but I'm not sure I can see any deep fake or post compositing here.

Re: What Parler Saw During the Attack on the Capitol

#15
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Five times and no comments on anything. I wonder why such a trove isn't worthy of discussion? I suspect because if people watched those videos, they'd come away with a very different perspective. Pretty much all you see is people standing around waving signs and chanting -- literally textbook non-violent protesting. Once you see them enter the Capital, you still don't see waves of violence and destruction. There are…

I agree. For days I thought perhaps hundreds had been protesting. I was blown away to hear it was thousands, and immediately realized that the media was latching onto perhaps dozens of bad apples, so to speak. I think it’s plain to see that most Americans don’t want to murder politicians. The Republican voters who feel disenfranchised aren’t all sharpening their axes right now. I think it’s insane what happened. It j…

There were more than what I'd call dozens, there's already been over 100 arrests and it's early in the investigation. Also basing this on the videos I've seen. There were hallways full of people packed behind barriers, streams of people going by different locations, etc.

I wouldn't say violence of this sort is representative of Republicans, but Republicans are too accepting of the extremists that this event grew out of. One of them is the leader of their party.

Re: What Parler Saw During the Attack on the Capitol

#16
post #5

This is great but its been posted 5 times in the last 2 days. https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=propublica.org Regardless, Id like to see this with other events as well, even casual events.

Five times and no comments on anything. I wonder why such a trove isn't worthy of discussion? I suspect because if people watched those videos, they'd come away with a very different perspective. Pretty much all you see is people standing around waving signs and chanting -- literally textbook non-violent protesting. Once you see them enter the Capital, you still don't see waves of violence and destruction. There are…

> Most of those didn't have large groups just standing around waving signs and chanting -- almost everyone was involved in the violence and destruction

This is demonstrably false, and you should retract it.

Second, it is qualitatively different to riot and break into one of our main bodies of government and threaten the lives of anyone (even if it was just a select few out of the larger whole) during an important part of the process of our peaceful transition of power. To simply equate this rioting to this summer's protests (and yes riots) and say "it's all wrong" is to almost miss the point entirely about what the impact, the risks, and the response to these two things should be.

And while I would broadly agree that most of the content collected here is of angry, mostly harmless (and willfully misinformed) constituents asking for their voice to be heard, what I also saw was:

* Largely unanimous support for attacking the police, breaking and entering into the Capitol, people cheering and laughing at everyone trespassing, breaking barricades. Definitely no signs of disapproval or concern for the police, the Congress, public property, or even the optics of the situation.

There were of course a couple of instances of "don't hurt the cops" but they were completely outnumbered by the "this is OUR HOUSE"/1776 crowd.

* If you just watch the last 2 hours of video - when the National Guard arrived, pushed people out of the building, then off the Capitol, out of the Mall, and so on - the videos turned extremely angry, negative, "f*k the police", "traitors!" etc it is absolutely clear that the only reason you have such a positive vibe about the first half of the videos is because there was such little resistance to their actions during the first half.

If there had been armed National Guard presence there from the outset, this would've been much uglier, without the "waving flags and chanting" you see.

Re: What Parler Saw During the Attack on the Capitol

#17

Watch the video "12:16 p.m. • Around D.C." and you can clearly see content-aware deep fake filling of crowds to increase the appearance of their magnitude. The so-called "Parler dataset" is completely useless as anything but a curiosity with respect to examining the nature of emerging digital ground-truth and perception metrics. Nothing contained in it is verifiable, and in my opinion it would be wise to be very skep…

> you can clearly see It's not clear to me, could you elaborate?

https://imgur.com/rJ2RSH8

Re: What Parler Saw During the Attack on the Capitol

#18

Doesn't exactly look worthy of losing our collective freedom of speech and right to assemble over. A stark contrast over the story being pushed in the media. Yet this event will be used as a scapegoat to push those very things in the near future. Just know that any laws passed or precedents set will be used first on the "radical right", will undoubtedly be used on the anti-vax and conspiracy crowd but will eventually…

So it's not the people that participated in an seditious attack on the capital and the most cherished democratic process, the democratic choosing of the US president that are the problem here? They built gallows outside the capital, they screamed "hang Mike Pence" because he didn't literally attempt to end American democracy for them. It's still "those other people who want to take our freedumbs away" that are the pr…

Exactly, that's how this works. They take all of our freedoms away while you cheer them on.

You know, this isn't the first time it's happened. People aren't just pulling this out of thin air. There's a very long history of these things playing out that way, time after time. We are currently in an era, since 2001, where every time the government or corporations decide to do something to "protect" us, they end up pushing us further into serfdom.

What I don't understand is how people still don't know their history, and think this time it's somehow different.

Re: What Parler Saw During the Attack on the Capitol

#19
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. For days I thought perhaps hundreds had been protesting. I was blown away to hear it was thousands, and immediately realized that the media was latching onto perhaps dozens of bad apples, so to speak. I think it’s plain to see that most Americans don’t want to murder politicians. The Republican voters who feel disenfranchised aren’t all sharpening their axes right now. I think it’s insane what happened. It j…

There were more than what I'd call dozens, there's already been over 100 arrests and it's early in the investigation. Also basing this on the videos I've seen. There were hallways full of people packed behind barriers, streams of people going by different locations, etc. I wouldn't say violence of this sort is representative of Republicans, but Republicans are too accepting of the extremists that this event grew out…

You're right, it was more than dozens. I think my mental model is something like:

- Dozens of severely bad actors - many of which actually did intend abduction or murder. These people are terrifying.

- Hundreds of bad actors. People attempting to subvert democracy which, despite sounding alarmist or cheesy without proper context (You need to see the videos to understand, I think) is also very scary. These people will hurt you for their political cause.

- Thousands of people convinced that their political system, their democracy, isn't serving them. This is alright with me - I think they were convinced by the bad/severely bad actors, and I believe this happens on all political spectrums. I know many "left leaning" folks with arguably insane ideas about politics and society in general, so this isn't a republican disorder. I don't resent them or even myself for coming to unreasonable conclusions and I believe they're actually trying to improve their situation in the way they know how. Being wrong in and of itself isn't a crime, I suppose. Protesting on bad information is unfortunate, but not criminal.

I have sympathy for all of these people. Things seem pretty awful for them right now, whether it should or not. It all seems very self-inflicted. Regardless, it seems a lot of manipulation has been involved. It's very cult-like. Power hungry folks have recruited disenfranchised individuals to serve their agendas. It's really sad.

The rest of the republican voters will be a mix of these groups, but I suspect they've come to terms with the election despite disappointment. They don't want to zip tie anyone in congress or illegally overturn the election.

The bad actors really should experience consequences. They are a rot that contaminates the people around them. Whether they intend that or not, have good intentions or not, they have become so unreasonable and dangerous that they need to be contained at the least. I believe that includes Donald Trump most of all.

Re: What Parler Saw During the Attack on the Capitol

#20
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it's not the people that participated in an seditious attack on the capital and the most cherished democratic process, the democratic choosing of the US president that are the problem here? They built gallows outside the capital, they screamed "hang Mike Pence" because he didn't literally attempt to end American democracy for them. It's still "those other people who want to take our freedumbs away" that are the pr…

Exactly, that's how this works. They take all of our freedoms away while you cheer them on. You know, this isn't the first time it's happened. People aren't just pulling this out of thin air. There's a very long history of these things playing out that way, time after time. We are currently in an era, since 2001, where every time the government or corporations decide to do something to "protect" us, they end up pushi…

> What I don't understand is how people still don't know their history, and think this time it's somehow different.

Yes, let's talk about history. Let's see, was there another case study in history where you have a failed coup attempt spurred on by a egotistical leader whose shtick was to scapegoat sections of the population and play "us vs them" politics? How did that turn out?

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