Supporters of President Donald Trump, who revolted in the U.S. Capitol building on Wednesday, have openly planned for weeks on both mainstream social media and the pro-Trump internet. On forums like TheDonald, a niche site formed after Reddit banned the eponymous subreddit, they promised violence against lawmakers, police and journalists if Congress did not reject the results of the 2020 elections.
In an interaction four days ago, a person at TheDonald asked, “What if Congress ignores the evidence?”
“Invading the Capitol,” replied one, who received more than 500 positive votes.
“You’re fucking right, we do,” another said.
On the pro-Trump Parler social media site, the Telegram chat app and other corners of the far-right internet, people discussed the Capitol rally in which Trump spoke as the catalyst for a violent uprising. They have used these forums to plan an uprising in plain sight, which they carried out on Wednesday afternoon, forcing Congress to abandon their chambers when they met to certify the election results.
“Extremists have repeatedly expressed their intentions to attend the January 6 protests for weeks and have blatantly expressed their desire for chaos and violence online,” said Jared Holt, a visiting researcher at DFRLab. “What we witness is the manifestation of this violent online rhetoric in danger in real life.”
“The first call we got on our radar today, specifically, was a chat room for the militia movement talking about being ‘ready for blood’ if things didn’t start to change for Trump,” said Holt.
The police, however, appeared unprepared for the scale of the violence on Wednesday. Capitol police were quickly overwhelmed, dramatically outnumbered by Trump supporters. While thousands of National Guard soldiers were stationed in Washington, DC, during the Black Lives Matter protests, the DC National Guard was not deployed on Wednesday until well after the Capitol perimeters were breached.
Hundreds of posts by extremists discussed firearms possession, in violation of Washington, DC law. However, people displayed weapons that they brought with them.
“All this bullshit about not bringing guns to DC needs to stop,” said a Tuesday post with more than 5,000 positive votes. “This is America. Fuck DC, it’s in the Constitution. Bring your damn weapons. “
According to Advance Democracy, a nonprofit research organization, every corner of the social network signaled imminent violence in the days leading up to the riot.
“At TheDonald, more than 50% of the top posts on January 4, 2021, on the January 6 Electoral College certification, presented unmoderated calls for violence in the top five responses,” concluded the organization.
“ARMED WITH RIFLE, PISTOL, 2 KNIVES AND SO MUCH AMMUNITION YOU CAN CARRY”, said a post on the website.
This was also the case in Parler, concluded the ADI. An account, named No Trump No Peace #GoTime, posted a GIF with a bow and caption that said: “Who would you like to see ‘dispatched’ first? 1) Nancy Pelosi 2) John Roberts 3) Pence 4) other (please name) I was leaning towards Nancy, but it may have to be Pence. ”(Two days after that post, a live broadcast of the violent crowd outside Congress showed them shouting“ Hang Mike Pence ”.)
Even on major social media channels like Twitter and TikTok, calls for violence were easy to find. According to Advanced Democracy, more than half of the QAnon-related Twitter accounts – about 20,800 – mentioned January 6, although most posts did not explicitly call for violence.
“It is no coincidence that the president said that January 6 in DC would be crazy. @ LLinWood has just told us that many of our politicians are raping and killing children. They won’t be able to walk down the street, ”said a post.
Calls for violence could even be heard the night before the protests. “Tomorrow – I don’t even like to talk because I’m going to be arrested – I’m going to speak. Tomorrow, we need to go to the Capitol, ”said a man on a live broadcast by white supremacist Baked Alaska, a far-right Internet troll whose real name is Tim Gionet and who has worked briefly for BuzzFeed. The next day, Gionet was sitting in a Senate office, having broken into the building as part of the mob.
On Facebook, a group called Red State Secession brought together almost 8,000 members. The group sent people to a website that offered travel routes to DC and memes to post on social media.
There was no channel that seemed more important than The Donald.
“I’m thinking it will be a literal war that day,” said one commentator, according to the Daily Beast. “Where are we going to break into offices and physically remove and even kill all DC traitors and recover the country.” A January 4 post on the website with an image with the words “Pepe Army” and “stop the theft” received 5,500 positive votes. “Stop stealing and execute the ‘thieves'”, said the main comment.