Stelter: Fox News and Facebook are part of the pro-Trump fantasy that made possible the siege of the Capitol

Stelter: Fox News and Facebook are part of the pro-Trump fantasy that made possible the siege of the Capitol

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“The more research I did this week, the more I realized that Fox News programs and Facebook groups are just part of Pro-Trump Fantasyland,” said CNN’s chief media correspondent Brian Stelter in “Reliable Sources” on Sunday. “There is a lot of guilt for everyone.”

Stelter said Big Tech and the conservative media hosted and repeated President Donald Trump’s lies that led to the siege. Trump incited the rowdies with a message of electoral fraud that was disseminated on the right-wing media and social media platforms. These messages soon spread to the deepest and ugliest layers of the Internet, from InfoWars to 8chan forums.

“People say Donald Trump plus the Internet brings in extremists,” CNN correspondent Elle Reeve told Stelter on Saturday. “But I think the reality is a reversal of that: that Donald Trump plus the Internet brings extremism to the masses,” said Reeve.
Prior to Wednesday’s events, Trump supporters met virtually on a variety of social media platforms, including Twitter, TikTok and Parler, the social media platform now banned and popular with conservatives. Many called for violence.
In the past few weeks, Amazon Web Services has reported 98 examples of Parler posts that encouraged and incited violence, according to a letter obtained by CNN Business. Amazon, Apple and Google banned Parler for his lack of ability – or desire – to moderate the hateful and violent speech on the platform. But that kind of insidious speech remains on YouTube, Facebook, Google’s Twitter and many other conventional social networks.

Despite some efforts to control the parties that most incite hatred and violence in their networks, including banning Trump from Facebook and Twitter last week, Big Tech has largely failed or is not willing to control the worst aspects of the media Social. The siege of the Capitol was planned on these platforms.

“Facebook’s own research showed that two-thirds of the time a user joined an extremist group on Facebook, it’s because Facebook’s own algorithm recommended it,” said Adam Sharp, former Twitter news, government and election chief. .

Sharp changed his mind when it comes to expelling the president from Twitter.

“I didn’t think that Twitter or any private company should cover up this president’s story,” he said. “[But] the president’s violations of Twitter law and policies when it comes to threatening Congress are so blatant because he is the president and because he crossed that very specific constitutional line. ”

The role of the right-wing media in violence

The Capitol disturbances were caused by Trump-empowering politicians and media, who for years ignored warnings that something like this would inevitably happen. Jake Tapper tweeted On thursday.
“The disturbing scenes on national television on Wednesday were a natural consequence of the lies and conspiracy theories about the presidential election that Trump supporters have been provided for weeks,” wrote Oliver Darcy, senior media reporter at CNN Business .

Some right-wing personalities are distancing themselves from Trump after the attack on the Capitol. This is a step in the right direction, and one that other conservative media hosts should take to prevent future incidents such as Capitol disturbances from occurring, said Julie Roginsky, a Democratic strategist and former Fox News contributor, in “Trusted Sources.”

“Fox News can stop this,” said Roginsky. “They can stop this by putting the truth in power.” She added: “I suspect the Murdochs know that [Trump is] unbalanced. “

But if there is any self-reflection going on at Fox, Newsmax, OAN and other right-wing media, it is not universal.

Some conservative media are still spreading misinformation about the election. Some personalities have falsely claimed in the air and on social media that Antifa’s left-wing groups were responsible for the violence on Wednesday – claims denied by videos of the attack and arrests of rebels who support Trump.

“There are always bad actors who infiltrate large crowds,” Hannity said on his program on Wednesday night after the Capitol siege.

And Tucker Carlson of Fox was quick to say that the violent acts had nothing to do with racism, although the police offered little resistance to the predominantly white crowd. The police have been comparatively much stronger against black protesters in recent months.

“Whatever you thought about what happened yesterday, what was racist about it? Nothing, of course. There was nothing racist about it,” he said on his program.

Over the weekend, conversations at Fox shifted to Twitter’s decision to ban Trump.

“Trump’s supporters in the right-wing media are desperately trying to minimize Wednesday’s crimes,” said Stelter. “They are trying to move on and stick it in the memory hole. They prefer to complain about Twitter.”

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