Prior to the protest, several TikTok videos promoting violence reached thousands of views, with one user advocating that protesters take their “mother-[expletive] weapons “for DC, according to Advance Democracy. A TikTok video containing violent rhetoric had nearly 280,000 views.
TikTok removed two of the offending videos after they were flagged by CNN Business.
“Hate behavior and violence have no place in TikTok. Content or accounts that seek to incite, glorify or promote violence are a violation of our Community Guidelines and will be removed,” said a TikTok spokesman.
On Twitter, there were more than 1,250 account posts related to the QAnon conspiracy theory about Wednesday’s protests containing terms of violence since January 1. QAnon’s most basic belief places President Trump as the hero in a fight against the “deep state” and a sinister conspiracy by Democratic politicians and child-abusing celebrities.
A post on a QAnon-related account retweeted a post with an unfounded conspiracy theory that Democrats, Black Lives Matter activists and Antifa protesters planned to kill Trump supporters and advocated that anyone who noticed these individuals “get rid of them”.
“In the past few days, we have seen unprecedented calls for online violence among Trump’s most fervent supporters,” said Daniel J. Jones, president of Advance Democracy.
He said this was fueled by President Trump and his electoral lawyers, who have made “uninterrupted false claims” about the “fraud” of the presidential election, as well as by 13 Republican senators who oppose the results of the Electoral College. “[This] it served to legitimize Trump’s position and conspiracy theorists, “Jones said.” The unprecedented violence we see today is a direct result of the president’s rhetoric. “
The riots highlight the dangerous consequences of online misinformation that spreads to the real world.
“First there was volatile rhetoric online, then explicit calls for violence and now people are acting in accordance with these links in the country’s capital and flagrantly breaking the law,” the Anti-Defamation League said in a statement. “More than anything, what is happening now at the Capitol is a direct result of the fear and misinformation that has been spreading consistently from the Oval Office.”
ADL also said that President Trump promoted sedition and incited violence and asked social media companies to suspend the president’s accounts immediately, “as they would with anyone who defends disinformation and promotes violence. It’s time.”
Facebook condemned the violent riots in the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, but did not go so far as to say that Trump would be blocked on the social media platform.
“The violent protests on Capitol Hill today are a disgrace,” said Facebook spokesman Andy Stone in a statement. “We prohibit incitement and calls for violence on our platform. We are actively reviewing and removing any content that violates these rules. ”
Parler did not immediately respond to a request for comment.