Just another quiet week in America, amiright?
- Not surprisingly, Misinformation dropped dramatically the week after Twitter banned Trump.
- Trump remains largely invisible after Kushner squashes attempts at building fringe social media presence. No Gab for Trump. Meanwhile, President Trump lashes out at social media companies following Twitter ban.
- Trump’s existential threat: How to keep GOP in line without Twitter.
- GoFundMe bans travel fundraising for political events with ‘risk of violence’.
- Salesforce ‘Takes Action’ to Prevent RNC Emails From Inciting Violence.
- Facebook bans ads promoting weapon accessories, blocks events near White House, Capitol ahead of inauguration.
- Snapchat will permanently ban Trump’s account.
- Seldom-seen Amazon unit made the call that brought down pro-Trump Parler.
- E.U.’s top digital enforcer says Twitter’s Trump ban was response to ‘extreme situation’.
- Facebook Removes ‘Stop The Steal’ Content; Twitter Suspends QAnon Accounts.
- Google pausing all political ads following Capitol siege. As always, I’ll point out that most #disinformation spreads organically, not via ads. Shutting down political & issue ads makes it HARDER to respond to disinformation.
- ‘We Tried to Warn You’. “Links between online misinformation and real-world violence were always a problem ‘over there.’ The Capitol Hill riot shows otherwise.”
- How Trump’s internet built and broadcast the Capitol insurrection. “Online extremists started planning the chaos of January 6 months ago”. C.f. Jan. 6 Was 9 Weeks — And 4 Years — in the Making. “I spent the last election cycle immersed in the metastasizing paranoia behind Wednesday’s assault on Congress. Nobody should be surprised by what just happened.”
- Large bitcoin payments to right-wing activists a month before Capitol riot linked to foreign account.
- Online extremists are ignoring Trump’s call for calm. Watching what he does, not what he says.
- Facebook’s Sandberg deflected blame for Capitol riot, but new evidence shows how platform played role. C.f. Facebook Can’t Fix What It Won’t Admit To and How to Hold Social Media Accountable for Undermining Democracy (via Eric Wilson).
- From Fundraising To Campaign Ads: The Ethics Considerations For Consultants.
- Schwarzennegger compares Capitol riot to the rise of the Nazis. “President Trump is a failed leader. He will go down in history as the worst president ever. The good thing is he will soon be as irrelevant as an old tweet.”
- Selfie-Snapping Rioters Leave FBI a Trail of Over 140,000 Images. Also, location data from their phones. And, They Used to Post Selfies. Now They’re Trying to Reverse the Election.
- Posted Live From the Inferno: These pictures are what would happen if Facebook became flesh. “On Parler and Newsmax, I watched invaders watching themselves on their own social-media platforms. The feedback loop was astonishing and insane, the moment transformed into a sort of collective far-right group portrait.”
- The Pro-Trump Mob Was Doing It For The ‘Gram, via Eric Wilson.
- Trump supporter nabbed by FBI after Facebook boast about breaking down Pelosi’s office door.
- But, The wrong ID: Retired firefighter, comedian and Chuck Norris falsely accused of being Capitol rioters.
- ‘Buy more guns and ammo’: The far-right is using messaging apps like Telegram to organize after the Capitol riot, Extremists move to secret online channels to plan for Inauguration Day in D.C., and Far-right groups move online conversations from social media to chat apps — and out of view of law enforcement.
- Far-right militias are using TikTok to organize and recruit new members, via ACRONYM.
- Lawmakers who conspired with Capitol attackers in legal peril. If so, the evidence could come from texts and emails.
- Before he stormed the Capitol, ex-W.Va. lawmaker harassed women at an abortion clinic. “Before Evans became her colleague in the legislature, state Del. Danielle Walker knew him as the man who would stake out lawmakers at the Capitol and put a camera in their faces, recording videos for his Facebook.”
- Q folks think Trump used Morse code to communicate with them. “Four minutes and 20 seconds [into the video], Trump moved his hands briefly. The movement went completely unnoticed — except by QAnon followers, who believe it was Trump’s attempt to signal them, using Morse code.”
- QAnon reshaped Trump’s party and radicalized believers. The Capitol siege may just be the start. Example: QAnon believer who plotted to kill Nancy Pelosi came to D.C. ready for war.
- Twitter purged more than 70,000 accounts affiliated with QAnon following Capitol riot.
- Politico brought Ben Shapiro on as a ‘Playbook’ guest author to bring balance. It brought a backlash instead. C.f. Politico’s Ben Shapiro debacle — zero lessons learned from the Trump era.
- How Ben Shapiro & Daily Wire make money, via ACRONYM.
- MAGA-land’s Favorite Newspaper. “The Epoch Times is unreservedly pro–Donald Trump, and coverage of the newspaper tends to portray it as either a recent entrant into the Trumpist media stable or a case study of Facebook-enabled misinformation. To an extent, it is both.”
- On its 20th birthday, Wikipedia might be safest place online. “The world’s largest online encyclopedia has learned lessons from fighting misinformation for two decades”. Plus, The Fight to Win the Pettiest Edit Wars on Wikipedia.
- How Facebook and Other Sites Manipulate Your Privacy Choices.
- TikTok Is Poised to Outlast Trump, and to Test Biden.
- Internet Blocked in Uganda as Polls Close in Volatile Election.
- Following 2020 Elections, New Poll Details Digital Transformation of American Politics, via Eric Wilson.
- Democratic Strategist Launches ‘Worker-Owned’ Digital Agency.
- Second Higher Ground Labs-Backed Startup Gets Acquired Post-2020. PDI buys OutreachCircle.
- After 2020, Media Strategists Say The Ad Playbook Has Expanded.
- And finally, An Annotated Guide to Jon Ossoff’s Extremely Online Twitter Feed.
Too much is never enough? Check out previous Quick Hits editions.
– cpd