GSAN: Mob reality | Antifa falsely accused | Riot or coup?

Mob reality

When the mob of extremists, conspiracists and zealous supporters of President Donald Trump violently raided the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, many of its members behaved in person how they have generally acted online. They propagated disinformation, spewed hate, stoked violence, disregarded the law and overwhelmed authorities vastly outnumbered and ill-equipped to handle the onslaught. The consequences were deadly.

The crush of militia members, White nationalists, QAnon believers, “boomerwaffen” and ordinary Americans represented an alternative information ecosystem come dangerously to life — a physical demonstration of the “vanishing line between mainstream and fringe” political beliefs. The insurrection was a product of a circular and self-sustaining echo chamber of false political claims, propaganda from openly partisan media, conspiracy theories and disinformation that has been escalating — largely unchecked — for years.

Here are three key implications of this shocking event.

• The collapse of the physical and virtual. The crowds who came to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 5 and 6 to “save America” were misinformed, radicalized and organized online. According to Zignal Labs, a media intelligence company, “the term ‘Storm the Capitol’ was mentioned [online] 100,000 times in the 30 days preceding Jan. 6,” The New York Times reported. Once the “storm” arrived at the Capitol, however, the rioters never ceased being online. They chanted hashtags, livestreamed their invasion on sites like Dlive (where other users not only paid them but also used the chat to help them evade police) and they performed and posed for social media.
  • Related: “Police let most Capitol rioters walk away. But cellphone data and videos could now lead to more arrests.” (Craig Timberg, Drew Harwell and Spencer S. Hsu, The Washington Post).
     
• Threats, violence and police actions against the press. The mob harassed, threatened and assaulted journalists covering the event. They proclaimed “we’re the news now,” destroyed TV equipment and scrawled “murder the media” — which is also the name of a group of alt-right podcasters and YouTubers — on a door of the Capitol. Several journalists were also detained by police.
  • Related:
    • “Journalists were attacked, threatened and detained during the Capitol siege” (Brittany Shammas, The Washington Post).
    • “‘Three people threatened to shoot me.’ Journalists describe covering mob violence at the US Capitol” (Katherine Jacobsen and Lucy Westcott, Committee to Protect Journalists).
       
• Deplatforming measures. In the wake of the riot, social media platforms scrambled to retroactively enforce their own terms of service by flagging and deleting specific types of content and limiting or banning the accounts of users spreading dangerous disinformation about the election and attack on the Capitol. The morning after the failed insurrection, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the platform was banning Trump from both Facebook and Instagram indefinitely. On Jan. 8, Twitter announced that it was permanently suspending Trump’s account, which had more than 88 million followers. Parler, an alternative social media platform with lax community standards favored by people on the far right, was delisted from both the Apple and Google app stores over the weekend. It also had its cloud hosting revoked by Amazon on Jan. 10, knocking it offline until — and if — it can find a new hosting service.
  • Related:
    • “How Parler, a Chosen App of Trump Fans, Became a Test of Free Speech” (Jack Nicas and Davey Alba, The New York Times).
    • “Trump Is Banned. Who Is Next?” (Evelyn Douek, The Atlantic). 

Viral rumor rundown

NO: The facial recognition company XRVision did not identify supporters of the antifa movement among the mob who stormed the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6. YES: The openly conservative Washington Times published a report falsely claiming that XRVision had “matched two Philadelphia antifa members to two men inside the Senate.” NO: This is not true. YES: The Times removed the story from its website on Jan. 7 and replaced it with a new version with a correction. YES: Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz cited the incorrect report in remarks he made on the House floor after the Capitol was secured and repeated the false claim that some of the rioters were “members of the violent terrorist group Antifa.”

Note: Antifa is an unofficial anti-fascism movement and not an established organization.

Related:

• “Trump loyalists push evidence-free claims that antifa activists fueled mob” (Brandy Zadrozny and Ben Collins, NBC News).
• “There’s no proof antifa stormed the Capitol. The rumor spread quickly anyway” (Daniel Funke and Bill McCarthy, PolitiFact).

NO: Capitol Police officers did not simply let this pro-Trump mob through the barricades surrounding the Capitol building on Jan. 6. YES: Marcus DiPaola, the freelance journalist who shot this video and posted it to TikTok as part of his coverage of the Capitol riots, told PolitiFact that the police “definitely didn’t just open the barriers.” YES: A number of other videos show vastly outnumbered Capitol Police fighting to protect the Capitol, including at an initial barrier on the perimeter of the Capitol grounds. YES: Some video clips also seem to show police not resisting the rioters, and at least one police officer appeared to allow a rioter to take a selfie with him.

Related:

• “A Tale of Two Protests: Police treatment differed in Black Lives Matter vs. Capitol riots” (Nathan Baca, WUSA9).
• “Rioters breached US Capitol security on Wednesday. This was the police response when it was Black protesters on DC streets last year” (Nicole Chavez, CNN).
• “Former Capitol police chief shares thoughts on why officers appeared to let rioters in” (Minyvonne Burke, NBC News).

NO: This photo does not show Senate aides protecting Electoral College votes as the Senate chamber was evacuated on Jan. 6. YES: It shows aides carrying the ballot boxes from the Senate to the House chamber to be certified about an hour before rioters breached the Capitol building. YES: Parliamentary floor staff were credited with saving the ballot boxes from the mob.

★ NewsLit Picks

Featured

“How to describe the events at the U.S. Capitol” (John Daniszewski, AP Style Blog).

As journalists raced to document the historic and violent events unfolding at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, newsrooms across the country debated how to describe these events in news coverage. Stories filed by reporters included words like protest, riot, insurrection, mob and coup. In this piece, The AP Stylebook — which offers editing rules and language guidance followed by many news organizations— weighed in with a series of recommendations, including advising journalists to avoid the term “coup,” unless attributed to others, because “so far AP has not seen conclusive evidence that the protesters’ specific aim was to take over the government.” For newsrooms grappling with these decisions on deadline, this broader advice stands out: “As always, journalists should look at the events with an open and dispassionate mind and decide what language best applies.”

Related:

• “There’s an ongoing battle of words to describe Jan 6, 2021. Here’s why it matters” (Christopher Booker, PBS NewsHour).
• “From historic day to ‘insurrection,’ how the mob takeover of the Capitol unfolded in news coverage” (Jeremy Barr and Paul Farhi, The Washington Post).
• “Is America experiencing a coup?” (Nicolás Rivero, Quartz).

Note: Journalists at the Toledo Blade say management “manipulated wording in headlines, stories, and photo captions to alter the reality of what occurred” on Jan. 6, including avoiding describing rioters as Trump supporters in headlines. The Blade’s news guild announced a temporary byline strike, removing journalists’ names from stories.

Quick Picks

“This Pro-Trump YouTube Network Sprang Up Just After He Lost” (Craig Silverman, BuzzFeed News).

• Note: The Epoch Times is an openly partisan, far-right media outlet that mimics the appearance of a legitimate, standards-based news organization but has repeatedly lent credence to baseless conspiracy theories. It regularly publishes highly misleading political coverage and is connected to the dissident Chinese spiritual movement Falun Gong.

“How to reduce the spread of fake news — by doing nothing” (Tom Buchanan, NiemanLab).
 

“How a Florida reporter became a one-woman help desk for anxious seniors navigating the COVID-19 vaccine” (Kristen Hare, Poynter).

Thanks for reading!

Your weekly issue of Get Smart About News is created by Peter Adams (@PeterD_Adams), Suzannah Gonzales and Hannah Covington (@HannahCov) of the News Literacy Project. It is edited by NLP’s Mary Kane (@marykkane).

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