Capitol Attack Was Months in the Making on Facebook • Hacker News Board

Re: Capitol Attack Was Months in the Making on Facebook

#401

Post by manfredo » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 11:53 PM UTC

r00fus wrote: post #355

whoknew1122 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Far-right terrorism in the US has never really been taken seriously. No one took them seriously. Until the Capitol was attacked. The Feds are starting to roll up high ranking militia members, so hopefully they learned their lesson this time.

Rolled, and let go on bail? [1] Or just released with a stay-away-from-DC order? [2] The discrepancy between how BLM and white nationalists are treated is staggering. [1] https://apnews.com/article/arrests-florida-nancy-pelosi-capi... [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2021/01/14/judg...

There was a varied response to BLM riots.

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.

Re: Capitol Attack Was Months in the Making on Facebook

#402

Post by thoughtstheseus » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 11:53 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #366

throwaway_6142 wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can somebody explain, since this was a long planned coup attempt against a Capitol that has its own police force, in a capital that has one of the largest and most heavily armed police forces in the world, why did the guncrazy far right militants leave their guns at home? And instead behaved mostly like an out of control protest with a few dozen violent rioters? It is a very peculiar way to attempt to overthrow a gov…

> why did the guncrazy far right militants leave their guns at home? Because despite their public rhetoric and willingness to carry guns when they don’t expect law enforcement opposition, they realized that their only chance of success at the Capitol was to not be treated by law enforcement the way that law enforcement (including the Secret Service) would treat a visibly-armed mob surrounding the Capitol during proce…

How did they coordinate not bringing guns? Or did they each individually realize this strategy without coordination? I think you’re giving them too much credit here.

Re: Capitol Attack Was Months in the Making on Facebook

#403

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 11:53 PM UTC

Barrin92 wrote: post #399

whoknew1122 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Far-right terrorism in the US has never really been taken seriously. No one took them seriously. Until the Capitol was attacked. The Feds are starting to roll up high ranking militia members, so hopefully they learned their lesson this time.

another thing that immediately came to mind after the capitol rioting was the standoff with Cliven Bundy and an article I saw a few years ago[1]. I even remembered that at the time there were people on Fox who were downplaying this as some sort of patriotic resistance against the government. Imagine if someone started a caliphate on US territory, I'm sure we'd be hearing the same kind of arguments /s "Cliven Bundy an…

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Re: Capitol Attack Was Months in the Making on Facebook

#404

Post by bilbo0s » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 11:54 PM UTC

loveistheanswer wrote: post #186

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The magnitude of threatening the lives of national leadership is different from the property damage of the BLM movements. The implications of each are different, too. Both are bad things.

Do citizens lives matter less than politicians lives?

Yes, the citizens' lives do matter.

Which is why our intelligence and security infrastructure are moving heaven and earth right now to locate and intercept the many foreign agents who attacked the capitol alongside their american collaborators. With luck, they will be intercepted before anything can happen that might be deleterious to the safety of all these lives we're all claiming are we care about so deeply.

It's good to see so many loyal and patriotic americans keeping eyes forward in this common endeavor. And not being sidetracked by matters like, say, street crime, that can be reliably left to the capable handling of municipal authorities.

Re: Capitol Attack Was Months in the Making on Facebook

#405

Post by pell » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 11:54 PM UTC

zyxzevn wrote: post #323

stretchcat wrote: post #78

It was planned for months, openly on Facebook in plain view of everybody. Remember that when politicians call for more intrusive surveillance in response.

What was planned? The peaceful demonstration with the friendly supporters that saw positivity in Trump? People that listened to Trump literally to gather Peaceful and protest against the steal of the election? Or the small group of Q supporters that were believing that some people in the government were working against corruption? Or the small group that was violent at one side, and was mixed with some rioters with a…

Your questions are all over the place, I'm not sure what you're getting at? I'm also not sure given what occurred in this instance that you can make some of the assumptions you included within these questions.

Also - Tim Pool isn't considered "reasonably neutral" by any stretch of the imagination. He is a very unnuanced commentator, his bias is hard to ignore, he tends to cherry pick data and often misrepresents opposite views, aside from that he is very inconsistent. If you do recommend people should check sources, I'm with you but Pool really isn't a particularly reliable one for factual accuracy, summaries or analysis.

Re: Capitol Attack Was Months in the Making on Facebook

#406

Post by matwood » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 11:56 PM UTC

klmadfejno wrote: post #162

trident5000 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realize that everyone has their own opinion on what is good and bad right? I cant believe how naive this statement is.

Golly it's just so hard to know who to trust. The crowds protesting racial injustice and police brutality? Or the literal, self identifying nazis, white supremacists, and cultish conspiracy theorists trying to kill political leaders. Alas our moral non cognizance in a post modern perspective. edit: to the below, really, no. There's no hyperbole. If your group features nazis, and your group is not making every effort…

> and your group is not making every effort to expel associations with said nazis

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.

Re: Capitol Attack Was Months in the Making on Facebook

#407

Post by chrononaut » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 11:56 PM UTC

dougk16 wrote: post #329

ryandrake wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what’s also chilling? Major tech platforms choosing to publish, amplify, and normalize: white supremacy, antisemitism, serious calls to violently overthrow democracy, conspiracies about the deep state cabal of satan-worshiping pedophiles, the health benefits of drinking bleach, denial of well understood scientific facts, etc. These things are fine for the town square, since people have free speech, but nobod…

Who gets the megaphone? My answer is either everybody or nobody. :)

The trouble in my opinion comes when these social networks begin to promote content to the user algorithmically. My Twitter feed is filled with content from users I do not follow. It makes up the majority of my feed. Likely, even if it was content that I was following, the most "engaging", or oftentimes "enraging" content, would be the content shown first.

If social networks were largely just content crafted by the people I follow, it would then be more representative towards a digital representation of the in-person social structures that would or do exist.

They make much less money that way though. Your average user would probably also use it less.

Re: Capitol Attack Was Months in the Making on Facebook

#408

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 11:59 PM UTC

gamblor956 wrote: post #386

9wzYQbTYsAIc wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That it isn’t a matter of proportion that caused Apple to pull Parler from their App Store.

No, Apple pulled it from the Apple store because Parler expressly refused to moderate the violent content even once it was made aware of it while still taking the time to moderate and ban left-leaning posts, indicating that it had the resources to moderate, it simply chose not to.

[deleted]

Re: Capitol Attack Was Months in the Making on Facebook

#409

Post by germinalphrase » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 11:59 PM UTC

nonce42 wrote: post #381

trident5000 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the verifiable facts again? Do you have alternative statistics because they're actually on the FBI website and contradict everything you're saying. The riots were most likely political AstroTurf before an election via amplification of convenient (and unfortunate/terrible) imagery to turn out voters. I hate to be stone cold but that's my understanding of what unfolded. We witnessed something similar in 2015.

> The riots were most likely political AstroTurf before an election I noticed that that the BLM protests happened a few months before the 2016 election and then vanished. Then the same thing happened before the 2020 election. To make this quantitative, here's a Google Trends link: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&ge...

To be specific, the data shows Google search interest - not number of protest events.

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.

Re: Capitol Attack Was Months in the Making on Facebook

#410

Post by newacct583 » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 11:59 PM UTC

alwaysdoit wrote: post #138

stretchcat wrote: post #78

It was planned for months, openly on Facebook in plain view of everybody. Remember that when politicians call for more intrusive surveillance in response.

Yeah, it's weird that the discussion has centered around censorship, rather than like... why didn't law enforcement shut this down sooner? Or at least properly prepare for it?

> it's weird that the discussion has centered around censorship

The discussion here has focused on the shutdown of Parler, both because the demographic leans right and because tech people feel more comfortable talking about data access and civil liberties than about political violence.

In the rest of society, I assure you, the laser focus of discussion is absolutely about the act itself, and the response to it, and questions about the likelihood of it happening again. The stuff about Parler is a side show for the most part.