6 ms·

Parler was ground zero for the community that announced and executed the attack on the capitol. Thought leaders there were routinely evoking, imagining, and ou

Parler was ground zero for the community that announced and executed the attack on the capitol. Thought leaders there were routinely evoking, imagining, and outright calling for violence, and the crowd was a feedback loop. Fundamentally the Parler community existed to provide a platform for people who had been already banned from Twitter. Frankly the peaceful use of the site was mostly incidental. I think there's a real argument that this data is in the public interest.

swalsh 6y ago
I generally agree that information from here related to the attack is in the public interest. But this is going to also reveal people who had no part of it. I don't think it's fair to justify revealing innocent peoples data.
- newacct583 6y ago
  How many "innocent" people were actually on Parler? It was a brand new service. It really was "Twitter for conservatives who got banned from Twitter". Almost literally everyone there was one of: 1. Someone who got banned from Twitter 2. Someone who wants to follow someone who got banned from Twitter 3. Someone (e.g. journalists) who want to follow all those people At what point does an online community become a danger to everyone? I'll note we had similar questions about much simpler services back in the days after 9/11, and the consensus opinion was very different then.
  - redflame8 6y ago
    You sound like the kid that couldnt understand why no one hungout with them
  - BlueTemplar 6y ago
    This is because the situation is also very different from 9/11 ?
  - throwaway3699 6y ago
    You can't be serious. There were literally millions of users on the platform.
    - newacct583 6y ago
      Per Wikipedia, the count of active users was 4M. And that's about right for the community of active "MAGA head" republicans in question. A lot of the horror and cognitive dissonance of this moment is that the mob the President aimed at Congress on Wednesday was not a weird or fringe group. They were just his fans. Look at the crowd, along with the armored people smashing windows and beating cops were smiling grandparents with flags. It's all the same group. The overlap between "mainstream republican" and "right wing terrorist" in our society has become horrifyingly blurred. So a lot of sincere attempts to address extremism look like "censoring republicans".
      - yanderekko 6y ago
        And a lot of insincere attempts to address extremism look like "censoring Republicans".
        TomSwirly 6y ago
        Republicans have a perfectly good voice on conventional social media. No one's censoring people on social media for quoting William F. Buckley, but for actively planning and encouraging a violent insurrection.
        yanderekko 6y ago
        Most people being banned did not do that, including Trump himself, and in fact the rapidly-expanding domain of speech that is being pretextually construed of as "actively planning and encouraging a violent insurrection" is in fact a large part of the problem here.
        esc_colon_q 6y ago
- cactus2093 6y ago
  I guess that depends if you see Parker as a general purpose social media site, which seems like a stretch. It’s a site dedicated to one cause, Trumpism, which is now a movement that is responsible for terrorism and an insurrection attempt on the US. Did the people cheering at hitler’s rallies but who never actually murdered anybody themselves have “no part in” the Holocaust?
- djtriptych 6y ago
  The rules are different when the democracy is at stake, as this country's history should have taught you.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - salawat 6y ago
    Yeahhh... No. A good half the problems in the world are created when we try to force oversized round pegs through undersized square holes. Besides which, was Parler not the site that required excessive amounts of personal info just to sign up? That means if authentication failed open, that could mean that this researcher has obtained access to reams of PII. Which they'll deny or state that of courae they didn't collect or look at, but the potential breach is large enough that doing something like this is so unconscionably reckless and stupid, it ranks right up there with the event that even has this site in the public eye in the first place. Another brick through the stained glass windows of American civil discourse. We don't even need other country's help to push us to the brink because of reckless moves like this.
    - djtriptych 6y ago
      Yeah, yes. Look at literally any time the democracy was seriously threatened and what happened to domestic liberty during that time.
      - swalsh 6y ago
        Was it okay to place Japanese in internment camps? Not going to wait for an answer, because the answer should clearly be no. Curtailing domestic liberties is not okay regardless the circumstances.
        djtriptych 6y ago
        Never OK but sometimes necessary. I'm sure you can at least imagine a scenario where it's appropriate to curtail speech to save lives, e.g. taking away an enemy combatant's comms, even if they're American. Liberty is always opposed to security. How free we are depends on how worried we are. That's always the case.
- TomSwirly 6y ago
  Why are we always asked to care about awful people who would happily see us all dead?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
thaufeki 6y ago
The personal data of everyone who has used the site is in the public interest? Are you high?
ErikVandeWater 6y ago
Do you have evidence that more violent activity was planned on Parler than Facebook or Twitter, or even a disproportionate amount? Edit: I suppose not.
- newacct583 6y ago
  Lin Wood called for Pence to be executed. This got shared a ton (like tens of thousands of times). A few days later there was a mob in the capitol chanting "Hang Mike Pence!". Lin Wood didn't say that on Twitter, because he had been previously banned on Twitter for similar rhetoric. Not sure about his status on Facebook, but Parler was absolutely where this stuff was happening. The denial here is just wild. Like... this is all over the news. Edit: some collated examples that just went by on my twitter feed, including the Wood threat: https://twitter.com/drewharwell/status/1348463074295107585 https://twitter.com/drewharwell/status/1348463074295107585
  - ErikVandeWater 6y ago
    "Hang Mike Pence" was trending on Twitter.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
reuben_scratton 6y ago
Was it really? Where can I see proof of this?
jacksonkmarley 6y ago
Well, there's this from Glenn Greenwald: > Do you know how many of the people arrested in connection with the Capitol invasion were active users of Parler? > Zero. > The planning was largely done on Facebook. [0] https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1348619731734028293?s=20 https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1348619731734028293?s=... edit: bad formatting
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  Well, there’s this by me: > Do you know how many of the people arrested in connection with the Capitol invasion were active users of Parler? No, and neither does Greenwald, because its not like Parler has a real-name-to-account lookup function he has access to, or authorities have compiled and released breakdowns of all the social media accounts of arrestees, etc. At best, Greenwald is fallaciously treating absence of information about their Parler use as information of absence of such use, at worst he's just making stuff up. > The planning was largely done on Facebook. Planning, including for the violence, was done on Parler among a wide variety of different sites. Actual journalists who are interested in investigating and reporting facts, and who haven’t abandoned actual journalism for pure ideological propaganda like Greenwald, have covered this, including the content of specific posts: https://theconversation.com/far-right-activists-on-social-media-telegraphed-violence-weeks-in-advance-of-the-attack-on-the-us-capitol-152861 https://theconversation.com/far-right-activists-on-social-me... https://www.propublica.org/article/capitol-rioters-planned-for-weeks-in-plain-sight-the-police-werent-ready?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter#1040996 https://www.propublica.org/article/capitol-rioters-planned-f... https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2021/01/07/capitol-attack-was-planned-openly-online-for-weeks-police-still-werent-ready/?sh=727c785e76e2 https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2021/01/07/capitol... https://www.vox.com/recode/22221285/trump-online-capitol-riot-far-right-parler-twitter-facebook https://www.vox.com/recode/22221285/trump-online-capitol-rio...
- sangnoir 6y ago
  Where did he get his data from to assert that with confidence? Also, how many people had been arrested in total at the time of Glenn's tweet - I have a feeling the number is going to go way up, and with Parler data becoming public, it will be easy to disprove his assertion (which may be technically true, but has low information density)

swalsh 6y ago

I generally agree that information from here related to the attack is in the public interest. But this is going to also reveal people who had no part of it. I don't think it's fair to justify revealing innocent peoples data.

newacct583 6y ago
How many "innocent" people were actually on Parler? It was a brand new service. It really was "Twitter for conservatives who got banned from Twitter". Almost literally everyone there was one of: 1. Someone who got banned from Twitter 2. Someone who wants to follow someone who got banned from Twitter 3. Someone (e.g. journalists) who want to follow all those people At what point does an online community become a danger to everyone? I'll note we had similar questions about much simpler services back in the days after 9/11, and the consensus opinion was very different then.
- redflame8 6y ago
  You sound like the kid that couldnt understand why no one hungout with them
- BlueTemplar 6y ago
  This is because the situation is also very different from 9/11 ?
- throwaway3699 6y ago
  You can't be serious. There were literally millions of users on the platform.
  - newacct583 6y ago
    Per Wikipedia, the count of active users was 4M. And that's about right for the community of active "MAGA head" republicans in question. A lot of the horror and cognitive dissonance of this moment is that the mob the President aimed at Congress on Wednesday was not a weird or fringe group. They were just his fans. Look at the crowd, along with the armored people smashing windows and beating cops were smiling grandparents with flags. It's all the same group. The overlap between "mainstream republican" and "right wing terrorist" in our society has become horrifyingly blurred. So a lot of sincere attempts to address extremism look like "censoring republicans".
    - yanderekko 6y ago
      And a lot of insincere attempts to address extremism look like "censoring Republicans".
      - TomSwirly 6y ago
        Republicans have a perfectly good voice on conventional social media. No one's censoring people on social media for quoting William F. Buckley, but for actively planning and encouraging a violent insurrection.
        yanderekko 6y ago
        Most people being banned did not do that, including Trump himself, and in fact the rapidly-expanding domain of speech that is being pretextually construed of as "actively planning and encouraging a violent insurrection" is in fact a large part of the problem here.
        esc_colon_q 6y ago
cactus2093 6y ago
I guess that depends if you see Parker as a general purpose social media site, which seems like a stretch. It’s a site dedicated to one cause, Trumpism, which is now a movement that is responsible for terrorism and an insurrection attempt on the US. Did the people cheering at hitler’s rallies but who never actually murdered anybody themselves have “no part in” the Holocaust?
djtriptych 6y ago
The rules are different when the democracy is at stake, as this country's history should have taught you.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- salawat 6y ago
  Yeahhh... No. A good half the problems in the world are created when we try to force oversized round pegs through undersized square holes. Besides which, was Parler not the site that required excessive amounts of personal info just to sign up? That means if authentication failed open, that could mean that this researcher has obtained access to reams of PII. Which they'll deny or state that of courae they didn't collect or look at, but the potential breach is large enough that doing something like this is so unconscionably reckless and stupid, it ranks right up there with the event that even has this site in the public eye in the first place. Another brick through the stained glass windows of American civil discourse. We don't even need other country's help to push us to the brink because of reckless moves like this.
  - djtriptych 6y ago
    Yeah, yes. Look at literally any time the democracy was seriously threatened and what happened to domestic liberty during that time.
    - swalsh 6y ago
      Was it okay to place Japanese in internment camps? Not going to wait for an answer, because the answer should clearly be no. Curtailing domestic liberties is not okay regardless the circumstances.
      - djtriptych 6y ago
        Never OK but sometimes necessary. I'm sure you can at least imagine a scenario where it's appropriate to curtail speech to save lives, e.g. taking away an enemy combatant's comms, even if they're American. Liberty is always opposed to security. How free we are depends on how worried we are. That's always the case.
TomSwirly 6y ago
Why are we always asked to care about awful people who would happily see us all dead?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

thaufeki 6y ago

The personal data of everyone who has used the site is in the public interest? Are you high?

ErikVandeWater 6y ago

Do you have evidence that more violent activity was planned on Parler than Facebook or Twitter, or even a disproportionate amount? Edit: I suppose not.

newacct583 6y ago
Lin Wood called for Pence to be executed. This got shared a ton (like tens of thousands of times). A few days later there was a mob in the capitol chanting "Hang Mike Pence!". Lin Wood didn't say that on Twitter, because he had been previously banned on Twitter for similar rhetoric. Not sure about his status on Facebook, but Parler was absolutely where this stuff was happening. The denial here is just wild. Like... this is all over the news. Edit: some collated examples that just went by on my twitter feed, including the Wood threat: https://twitter.com/drewharwell/status/1348463074295107585 https://twitter.com/drewharwell/status/1348463074295107585
- ErikVandeWater 6y ago
  "Hang Mike Pence" was trending on Twitter.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

reuben_scratton 6y ago

Was it really? Where can I see proof of this?

jacksonkmarley 6y ago

Well, there's this from Glenn Greenwald: > Do you know how many of the people arrested in connection with the Capitol invasion were active users of Parler? > Zero. > The planning was largely done on Facebook. [0] https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1348619731734028293?s=20 https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1348619731734028293?s=... edit: bad formatting

dragonwriter 6y ago
Well, there’s this by me: > Do you know how many of the people arrested in connection with the Capitol invasion were active users of Parler? No, and neither does Greenwald, because its not like Parler has a real-name-to-account lookup function he has access to, or authorities have compiled and released breakdowns of all the social media accounts of arrestees, etc. At best, Greenwald is fallaciously treating absence of information about their Parler use as information of absence of such use, at worst he's just making stuff up. > The planning was largely done on Facebook. Planning, including for the violence, was done on Parler among a wide variety of different sites. Actual journalists who are interested in investigating and reporting facts, and who haven’t abandoned actual journalism for pure ideological propaganda like Greenwald, have covered this, including the content of specific posts: https://theconversation.com/far-right-activists-on-social-media-telegraphed-violence-weeks-in-advance-of-the-attack-on-the-us-capitol-152861 https://theconversation.com/far-right-activists-on-social-me... https://www.propublica.org/article/capitol-rioters-planned-for-weeks-in-plain-sight-the-police-werent-ready?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter#1040996 https://www.propublica.org/article/capitol-rioters-planned-f... https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2021/01/07/capitol-attack-was-planned-openly-online-for-weeks-police-still-werent-ready/?sh=727c785e76e2 https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2021/01/07/capitol... https://www.vox.com/recode/22221285/trump-online-capitol-riot-far-right-parler-twitter-facebook https://www.vox.com/recode/22221285/trump-online-capitol-rio...
sangnoir 6y ago
Where did he get his data from to assert that with confidence? Also, how many people had been arrested in total at the time of Glenn's tweet - I have a feeling the number is going to go way up, and with Parler data becoming public, it will be easy to disprove his assertion (which may be technically true, but has low information density)