Parler users furious that site sent violent posts to FBI ahead of Capitol riot

https://www.newsweek.com/parler-fbi-capitol-riot-users-angry-posts-referred-federal-authorities-1579113

by pavel_lishin • 5 years ago

63 66 5 years ago

The deplatforming of Trump was Parler’s big break. The coordinated effort to remove Parler from the internet (which we know from this post was based on false accusations), as enough to sap the steam and steal the moment. A clear lesson for free-speech alternative platforms in the future.

When our technical overseers decide it’s time for you to go, they’ll show you the door quickly. A strong counter argument to “Just start your own twitter!”

krapp6• 5 years ago

(which we know from this post was based on false accusations)

How do we know that?

Nothing in the article makes any such claim, much less provides evidence to substantiate it, and neither does the Wall Street Journal article it links to[0]. If anything, quotes from Parler users referring to being "ratted out" as well as reactions to this very article from sites elsewhere (which can be found with a simple Google search,) suggest the accusations were accurate.

[0]https://www.wsj.com/articles/parler-says-it-informed-fbi-of-...

unloco• 5 years ago

people just don't understand what free speech really means. If you make terroristic threats, you're going to get in trouble.

It's analogous to incognito mode. People completely misunderstand its purpose.

They think it means they are sneaking around the internet protected with no consequences for their actions. In reality, "the internet" logs everything you're doing, only your personal browser doesnt. lol

krapp6• 5 years ago

They probably didn't care because they assumed they would all be pardoned after Trump took over.

jliptzin2• 5 years ago

In that scenario there wouldn’t even be a need for him to issue pardons

CharlesW• 5 years ago

For the naysayers, a "trump pardon capitol rioters" search will illustrate that this is exactly what many (most?) capitol rioters assumed.

zpeti• 5 years ago

So if the FBI knew about the threat, why weren't more precautions in place against rioting?

dragontamer10• 5 years ago

Because the DoD under Trump refused to provide support until 5pm.

EDIT: Remember: DC is a TERRITORY, not a state. Which means its security comes under the command of the *President*, who wasn't exactly keen on stopping the riot.

EDIT2: Remember the timeline: 12:30pm was around when the fence-line was breached. Capitol was breached by 2:30. DoD approving and sending support around 5pm is way late by any metric. Its clear that the executive branch was dragging their feet on the issue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_2021_storming_...

5:08 p.m.: Army senior leaders relay to Major General Walker the Secretary of Defense's permission to deploy the DCNG to the Capitol.[55]

ganoushoreilly4• 5 years ago

Look, Trump was a jackass, but this isn't factual at all. Both the National Guard and various individuals (Sergeant at arms, Capital Police Chief) asked for and or offered help. Each side was met with denial "due to optics".

On the capital side the CPC asked the SAM numerous times and the SAM was ordered to not make the request (though the SAM himself wanted too). Who is in charge of the sam? Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House.

Both Political parties are full of old lying cronies that are doing nothing but stoking the fires of discord by lying and blaming the other party.

The Capital Riots were a failure from all parties involved and no where has anyone asserted Trump refused to provide support.

EDIT: https://www.npr.org/2021/01/11/955548910/ex-capitol-police-c...

bsanr23• 5 years ago

FBI isn't under the DoD. The problem is an institution-wide reluctance to take right-wing and white supremacist radicalism seriously, dating back, at least, to the 1930s. Whatever the reason, it clearly colors the FBI's responses and predisposes them towards not taking forceful and purposeful action until calamity is already well underway.

jariel6• 5 years ago

This is a misrepresentation.

The Mayor of DC refused help in the days coming up to the protest and is very much on the record as saying they were 'well prepared'. [1]

The DoD is a major step to take, it's not like they would have been deployed early.

Trump and White House officials exacerbated the situation by refusing to call for help.

But for the preparations that matter, the city was the problem.

[1] https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/national-international/la...

0goel0• 5 years ago

One user wrote: "To confirm, you are calling for an investigation into big tech collusion while you are colluding with the FBI against your platform members?" Another user wrote: "This is NOT an example of a free speech platform. Parler is a fraud."

There it is. What these users want is not free speech, but rather no consequences.

wussboy• 5 years ago

Your last sentence really clarifies much of the thinking I’ve been doing over the last few years. When people say they want free speech what they usually mean is that they want consequence-free speech.

edit: I am not talking about the strict legal definition of free speech. I agree it's important that the government cannot punish people for the things they say. What I'm saying is that people want to be free of all consequence for the things they say. They want to shout the n-word at a large black man and not get punched. They want to advocate for paedophilia on Twitter and not get fired from their job. They want to be a jerk and not be ostracized by friends and family.

AnthonyMouse4• 5 years ago

That is literally what free speech is. The ability to express a political opinion without punishment or retaliation. Because punishment or retaliation is censorship. If you disagree with someone you prove them wrong in public instead of trying to get them fired or silenced. That's free speech.

Now, planning an act of violence is not expressing a political opinion. The people who think they don't go to jail for that are idiots. But that's the users, not the company, and if you want to shut down Parler for that then why is Facebook still there?

Digory• 5 years ago

Yes, university tenure is also a demand for “consequence—free speech.”

I guess academic freedom was a bad idea.

trident5000• 5 years ago

I think big tech has egg on their face for quite some time from this one. I dont care about Parler but it was clearly a political ban to appease the new party in power. Theres a lot of evidence coordination took place on Facebook and Twitter to a higher extent, and it would be absurd to say this type of stuff is not on those platforms in general. People are not going to forget this from an anti-trust perspective and how much power these companies really have to ban competition and have total control over markets.

Causality1• 5 years ago

Yep. Parler was and is a cesspit but all evidence indicates Facebook, not Parler, was the central platform for the insurrection. Parler was just the highlights reel.

brundolf• 5 years ago

it was clearly a political ban to appease the new party in power

I don't see it that way at all. I think these companies' PR is just constantly hanging off of whatever 51% of the country wants to see them do. When the riot happened, public opinion on Parler getting limited/kicked off the internet tipped from just under 50% to just over 50%, and every major corporation to whom it was relevant was watching. It doesn't matter whether more planning happened on Facebook, because that's not the way the public felt about it. I think it's really that simple.

Of course it's still a problem that a handful of companies have so much power and reach. Tyranny of the majority is a thing [1]. But I see no need to invoke conspiracy.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority

freebuju2• 5 years ago

Not supporting Parler's ideals or anything but if HN leaked my ip address to the FBeye (and the FBeye later informed me of this) I'd be equally pissed. I'd be doubly pissed off if HN snitched on themselves about this disclosure.

Anyway, probably not the best idea to join mainstream social media and call for mass violence or some other insane BS. Especially not on any of the American owned ones. These are just honeypots in disguise for the government.

seoaeu• 5 years ago

I'm struggling to think of any situation in which someone would actually want to be reported to the FBI. Doesn't mean that reporting them isn't the right thing to do.

klyrs2• 5 years ago

Have you considered maybe... not broadcasting evidence of a crime on a public forum? Or -- if it's not nominally "public" but it's still not e2ee -- you know that's a trust fall on unknown and possibly unwilling co-conspirators, right? It's okay to be pissed, those are your feelings, but this is basic opsec, people. For crap's sake

freebuju2• 5 years ago

the word opsec is a foreign concept for the average Joe. A good 95% of the audience who throng such places.

Doesn't matter who gave out my ip or metadata. I'd be pissed anyway. Even if my data wasn't leaked, what ever happened to the f#ck the pōlice code within our society... Someone sitting down and thinking how they can make the FBI's work of hunting down civilians like them easier. Something seriously wrong with these new generation of netizens.

chroem-4• 5 years ago

It's a very odd paradigm that we have in the US right now. To commemorate MLK Jr. Day, the CTO of the large company at which I work, sent out an email advocating for more political violence to promote racial justice issues, along with some circa-1960's quotes on the need for political violence. And this came only a couple weeks after the CTO spent a great deal of time decrying the capitol riot.

EDIT: It was done through adding emphasis to certain portions of Dr. King's "Letter From Birmingham Jail". In bold font:

who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace

ganoushoreilly4• 5 years ago

It's hypocrisy all around. Let us kill racism by splitting people up into groups. Lets relegate people to certain groups based on some sort of factor, hmm, maybe skin color? Yeah that's cool because that's not racist.

It's the same as the lack of admittance that the Capital Riot and a Year of riots around the US were all horrible. One did billions in damage to the US for months, the other a few broken windows and doors. Yet we're supposed to be mad that one group did something stupid, but respect the other because, they had an emotional right to it.

How about everyone that participated in rioting regardless of the cause, are morons that should be held accountable.

steve_adams_86• 5 years ago

The rioting that occurred for BLM is quite different from the insurrection.

Black people in the USA have faced various degrees of oppression at individual and systemic levels for generations. There’s not just residue of that left in the country, but real substance still present from day to day. It’s a real problem. I don’t support everything that happened during those riots, but I recognize the desire and the need to address and resolve that problem.

Donald Trump lost the election and tried to undermine the American democracy, incited violence, and caused a riot by lying to his supporters. Innocent people died, the social cohesion of America was seriously degraded, and it was all for virtually nothing.

I don’t support that. That group did do something stupid. But I think it’s important to have compassion for them, because they were lied to (and this was allowed for years) and they, like BLM protestors, probably believed they were doing important work.

If trump wasn’t lying to them, they would have been attempting to save democracy. The insurrection would have gone down in history as an important, brave moment. But that’s not what was happening. It’ll be remembered as something so much worse.

Just like BLM, bad rioters show up. That’s not necessarily a reflection of the cause. I try not to condemn a protest based on the damage that was done by bad actors. They’re always present. They’re sometimes placed by authorities to encourage people outside of the protest to demand that it ends and remove any support, patience, or tolerance.

I see a clear case for battling systemic racism, but none at all for battling for Trump’s illegitimate second term.

JKCalhoun• 5 years ago

To commemorate MLK Jr. Day, the CTO of the large company at which I work, sent out an email advocating for more political violence to promote racial justice issues…

And how has this email not leaked?

lgleason• 5 years ago

That's because the CEO's, CTO's etc don't actually care about the principals they claim they support. It is all about power and bending the words to fit their narrative. Basically if their side loots, riots, burns down cities, brings guns and shoots people, storms the lawmakers chambers, come close to breaching the white house to the point of the president needing to be evacuated to a bunker, police stations and federal buildings etc. it is a mostly peaceful protest. But if a few un-armed larpers in viking costumes etc. walk into the capital it is an insurrection worthy of barbed wire fences and a troop buildup larger than many deployments to war zones.

krapp6• 5 years ago

To commemorate MLK Jr. Day, the CTO of the large company at which I work, sent out an email advocating for more political violence to promote racial justice issues, along with some circa-1960's quotes on the need for political violence.

Is that actually what they did, or do they support BLM, and you equate support for BLM with support for political violence?

chroem-4• 5 years ago

It was done through adding emphasis to certain portions of Dr. King's "Letter From Birmingham Jail". In bold font:

who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace

EricE2• 5 years ago

Wait, I thought Parlor was booted because they were turning a blind eye.

Which is it?

Parler users furious that site sent violent posts to FBI ahead of Capitol riot

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