Live data from Hacker News

Capitol Attack Was Months in the Making on Facebook

techtransparencyproject.org

461–470 of 969 posts

Re: Capitol Attack Was Months in the Making on Facebook

#461

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.

The rush to call the storming of the capitol terrorism is really misplaced. By adopting words like "terrorism" you're paving the way for an overreaching response from lawmakers and law enforcement -- something that will likely end up being used against a cause you might support, like BLM. Firstly, nobody was terrorized. No, this wasn't "our 9/11." I doubt it'll even be a topic of conversation in a few years, just lik…

Millions of Americans watched the Capitol insurrection play out live on tv. That has an impact on the national psyche that's very similar to a terrorist attack. People aren't going to forget about it because we all witnessed it together. It's going to be the defining event of trump's presidency, whether you think that's fair or not

Re: Capitol Attack Was Months in the Making on Facebook

#462
post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh right, I forgot about the part where "Antifa" or the BLM protests ended in them infiltrating the United States Capitol, killing guards with fire extinguishers and american flags, stole laptops from members of congress and attempted to sell them to Russia, and were wearing literal Nazi propaganda and claiming a revolution.

An angry mob surrounded the White House and tried to burn down the Church of the Presidents on May 31, 2020. 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…

This is the biggest downer of our time to me. The media/elite control of the narrative is astounding and nearly ironclad - and as best I can tell social media is just being used to reinforce it.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that if white supremacists performed those same actions, it would be described as a violent terroristic insurrection.

Re: Capitol Attack Was Months in the Making on Facebook

#464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's chilling how quickly radical terrorist groups have coalesced around using social media to coordinate their hatred and their attacks. A scant few years ago, America actively fought terrorists instead of encouraging and facilitating them.

Off topic but I'm having increasingly more difficulty with the term Terrorist. How'd you call American intrusions in sovereign states? Just somewhat recently the drone strike of the General Soleimani on sovereign grounds were an act of terrorism if perceived through the eyes of most Iranians, and possibly Iraqis as the strike was on their ground. Terrorist is a term that is stretched and applied beyond meaning.

Terrorism is committing violent acts targeting non-combatants for political goals

Re: Capitol Attack Was Months in the Making on Facebook

#465
post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A coworker has a lot of conservative friends. All of them were banned from FB until the 23rd. Even her daughter, who has never written any posts supporting DJT, but liked a few posts, was banned for the same time frame. I've read absolutely nothing about this in the news. She even shared a screenshot one of her friends shared with her. It said: "Your account is restricted right now. You're temporarily restricted from…

A news report on this would be interesting to see to get all the facts. I am not familiar with this.

I don't have a news report, but my wife has an instagram she uses to share pictures of cakes and cookies that she has baked, and also likes and follows right wing politicos, had a similar message silencing her account around the election.

Re: Capitol Attack Was Months in the Making on Facebook

#466

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…

You don’t need the guns if you have people on the inside. And a good number of the rioters seemed really quite surprised when law enforcement fought back against them. After all, they were carrying Blue Lives Matter flags, surely the cops are on their side! (and besides, there were a good number of people with guns at the protest. And some others brought pipe bombs. Thankfully neither ended up being a factor but no o…

Doesn’t add up. How are you going to hold the Capitol or any hostages without weapons?

Re: Capitol Attack Was Months in the Making on Facebook

#467
post #45

It's chilling how quickly the tech industry has coalesced around oppressive and biased social media censorship policies. A scant few years ago, the tech industry was a beacon of free expression.

Weird, I distinctly remember Twitter, Facebook and Google removing Islamic religious content under the guise of stopping terrorism a decade ago. What I don't remember is the current free speech absolutist crowd objecting to such censorship. In fact, I remember them cheering those companies on.

This isn’t so. I and many other free speech proponents did not support that. There were people supporting it, but to the best of my knowledge they appear to mainly be the same people supporting censorship now.

Re: Capitol Attack Was Months in the Making on Facebook

#468
post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

When it happened, there was a reporter on CBC talking about how it was common knowledge in DC for a long time that there was a protest planned there. So indeed. The real question is why was there seemingly no preparation to handle it.

Some of the Capitol Police workers did apparently bring concerns to their supervisors, but nothing much was done about it.

Part of the answer that I am surprised you haven't been given yet is that there is an ongoing infiltration of the police forces in this country by far right wing activists. I mean, Exhibit A is the two off-duty cops from (I think) one of the Carolinas that were present in the actual riot. Here is a think piece [0] that has links to sources. I would not be surprised at all to learn that there were people in the Capitol Police itself who were sympathizers.

[0] https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/hidd...

Re: Capitol Attack Was Months in the Making on Facebook

#469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On one hand we have hooligans using a crowd as cover to get away with property damage. On the other we have hooligans organized for the express purpose of overturning the results of a democratic election. In the case of BLM, the crimes don't reflect on the movement's overall purpose. Nobody expects property damage to be a vehicle for police reform -- it's an argument for more police presence, if anything. In the case…

What would you call the Capital Hill Autonomous Zone if not an attempt at insurrection? Come on, can we have some intellectual honesty here? Both situations sucked, the people involved sucked, their reasoning sucked and they should all go to jail so that sane people can get back to their lives in peace. We are being forced into building absurd logical houses of cards just so we do not concede an inch to the other sid…

That's exactly right. The amount of mental gymnastics people do to excuse the thing they agree with but not the one they disagree with is staggering.

Re: Capitol Attack Was Months in the Making on Facebook

#470
post #419
post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the protesters have said they expected the police to be largely on their side. I suspect that when things got violent both the armed rioters and police realised that guns would just end up in a blood bath on both sides, and the first person to shoot on either side would probably end up dead pretty quickly.

I suspect the police weren't shooting because they realized how overwhelmed they were. I've seen a couple of videos where they had drawn their guns and prepared to fire but they were simply surrounded.

The interaction I saw between the rioters and those defending the Capitol just after the woman was shot seem more enlightening than this theory.
Post reply on HN