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Capitol Attack Was Months in the Making on Facebook

616 points by alexrustic 6y ago

alexrustic 6y ago
See also BuzzFeed News article about this: “If They Won’t Hear Us, They Will Fear Us”: How The Capitol Assault Was Planned On Facebook https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/davidmack/how-us-capitol-insurrection-organized-facebook https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/davidmack/how-us-capito...
- casefields 6y ago
  The government should fear its people and not the other way around. The gun of the public's ire should also be focused on class instead of in-class fighting over race. Who would rather be poor and white over rich and black? Exactly. Privilege comes from class, not skin.
Simulacra 6y ago
I'm not sure I believe this. If it was months in the making on Facebook, why did Facebook not do more to stop it? Reading this it actually gives weight that Facebook was just as responsible for the insurrection as Parler.
- akmarinov 6y ago
  Facebook was way more responsible than Parler.
  - Simulacra 6y ago
    I don't disagree with you. The evidence appears to support that conclusion, so I'm trying to understand why Facebook is given a pass. IMO Facebook has been the single greatest catalyst for abusive online behavior in twenty years, but it's in a protected class. I would like to know why. Is it just money?
    - trident5000 6y ago
      Because dems took total power in the elections and Apple and Google know they are under the antitrust microscope. Its likely indirect bribery in hopes of a returned favor.
      - yonaguska 6y ago
        Seems like every time big tech went in front of congress- it turned into a public fishing expedition for lobbying dollars. Democrats overwhelmingly called for censorship and regulation. Republicans overwhelmingly complained of unfair treatment. Big tech responds by preemptively censoring and regulating content. I believe that regulation is coming with dems in total power. Regulation will be written and paid for by big tech as a means to consolidate regulatory capture. I think you're right, it's indirect bribery. I doubt anything will be done about it.
    - spoonjim 6y ago
      It’s also, what functions does Facebook serve beyond organizing violence? Clearly it’s a lot. You can reasonably discuss banning handguns because they are only used to commit violence. You can’t reasonably discussing the ban of all knives, telling people who ask “how am I supposed to cook?” that they just need to bite their food into little pieces.
      - brummm 6y ago
        It's probably also rooted in the fact that the owner/CEO of facebook is much richer and better connected.
        compiler-guy 6y ago
        Apple has a long history of willingness to kneecap Facebook. So reluctance to take on Zuck is not likely the reason. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/12/16/tech/facebook-apple-ios-privacy-rules/index.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/12/16/tech...
      - 6y ago
- renewiltord 6y ago
  Now that I think about it: most of the planning happened on American soil under the eyes of the American Government. I'm afraid there's no choice but to abolish government.
- usefulcat 6y ago
  > If it was months in the making on Facebook, why did Facebook not do more to stop it? Two things: 1) If FB is seen to lean too far either left or right, it will create an opportunity for a competitor to emerge on the other side. FB is huge, so they have a lot to lose in that scenario. 2) They literally profit from the circulation of the very stuff that some would have them sensor. I don't see what is even slightly surprising about they way they've handled this. Edit: side note - I personally think #1 is likely at some point in the future. People have already gone a fair way towards segregating themselves into various social/political bubbles; why not even more self-segregation? If enough people want that, then either FB will enable it or a competitor will emerge to enable it.
  - mikem170 6y ago
    >2) They literally profit from the circulation of the very stuff that some would have them sensor. And as far as we know they may have been promoting inflammatory posts to drive engagement. They keep the algorithm they use to do that secret. I think they should show posts from friends in chronological order and let users filter them, or loose their common carrier status.
trident5000 6y ago
Still in the app stores I see.
- ardy42 6y ago
  > Still in the app stores I see. That's because this stuff was a tiny fraction of the activity on Facebook (it's HUGE, and still mostly for baby pictures), but a substantial fraction of the content on Parler and Gab (they're tiny, and mostly for the stuff that Facebook and Twitter ban). A lot of people who object to Parler's treatment want this conceived as a simple binary, but it's more of a matter of degree an proportion.
  - trident5000 6y ago
    Sounds like some serious mental gymnastics to me. And also not provable with any specific metrics.
    - seattle_spring 6y ago
      It really doesn't, but ok. Facebook has a huge moderation team. Just because some things get through that cause damage doesn't put it in the same category as a platform specifically built to enable terrorism.
      - trident5000 6y ago
        "a platform specifically built to enable terrorism" this is hyperbole. We shouldnt have 2 companies arbitrarily determining what the thresholds are for a service/app to exist.
      - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
        Parler is in the same category as facebook and twitter. It’s amazing that people have been gaslit to believe that Parler was intended for or mostly used by extremists. More amazing that people keep repeating this authoritatively when they clearly had no exposure to the service.
efwfwef 6y ago
If people had called one another to prepare this, would we say that the phone was responsible for the attack? And would we try to ban phones?
- ardy42 6y ago
  > If people had called one another to prepare this, would we say that the phone was responsible for the attack? And would we try to ban phones? That's a moot point, because an attack like this can't realistically be organized via one-to-one communication. It needs a broadcast medium, which the phone network isn't.
  - ruffrey 6y ago
    It’s certainly easier with social media, but before that people used phones and in person meetings.
  - beaner 6y ago
    Is CNN, a broadcast television network, considered a broadcast medium for attacks and terrorism for promoting and defending violent riots, and for giving reach to similar statements of support and justification from congress members such as AOC and Nancy Pelosi?
    - andrewvc 6y ago
      The idea that this summers riots were at all comparable to an attack on our nation's legislative body as it certified results of an election is repugnant and absurd. Its easier to point fingers at the other side than take any blame for your own. The insurrection at the nations capitol is a singular event, one that Republicans need to reckon with on its own terms. Some have done this, and I applaud them. They are proving to be the grown ups in the room.
      - beaner 6y ago
        What makes you think I'm on a side? I see hypocrisy all around. I think the capitol protests should not have happened, and the people who participated in them should be held accountable. I agree with you that the capitol riots and the summer riots are incomparable. The summer riots were much worse, lasted longer, targeted innocents rather than political institutions, were widely excused and often promulgated by the newsmedia and politicians, are still talked about as if they were just, continually avoid criticism by cowardly saying that such points are a "distraction" in the face of things like the capitol riots, and use dishonest sleights of hand like the changing of language from "riot" to "attack" to gaslight.
iodiocracynow 6y ago
child porno is still there but I haven't seen so much aggressive measure on what was done by private ... only by public officers and law enforcement
- IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
  Great example of other unwanted content that is more or less impossible to find on mainstream platforms, or even most seedy porn sites, or even the underbelly of the internet that was Parler.
  - Triv888 6y ago
    It was apparently easy to find on Pornhub not long ago which is very mainstream? I usually go for the mature category to avoid it... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/opinion/sunday/pornhub-rape-trafficking.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/opinion/sunday/pornhub-ra...
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - unanswered 6y ago
      That article is very homophobic and you probably shouldn't be citing it. It's pretending that the only porn that exists is depicting women.
traveler01 6y ago
So won't get the same Parler treatment? Cool...
beefee 6y ago
It's chilling how quickly the tech industry has coalesced around oppressive and biased social media censorship policies. A scant few years ago, the tech industry was a beacon of free expression.
- ryandrake 6y ago
  You know what’s also chilling? Major tech platforms choosing to publish, amplify, and normalize: white supremacy, antisemitism, serious calls to violently overthrow democracy, conspiracies about the deep state cabal of satan-worshiping pedophiles, the health benefits of drinking bleach, denial of well understood scientific facts, etc. These things are fine for the town square, since people have free speech, but nobody should be handing them a megaphone that reaches 7 billion people. Free speech does not mean you are entitled to have your speech broadcast to a global audience.
  - dougk16 6y ago
    Who gets the megaphone? My answer is either everybody or nobody. :)
    - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
      Even harder: Who gets to decide who gets the megaphone? I see the problems with "nobody, therefore everybody gets the megaphone", but I see nobody that I actually trust to decide who gets it...
    - chrononaut 6y ago
      The trouble in my opinion comes when these social networks begin to promote content to the user algorithmically. My Twitter feed is filled with content from users I do not follow. It makes up the majority of my feed. Likely, even if it was content that I was following, the most "engaging", or oftentimes "enraging" content, would be the content shown first. If social networks were largely just content crafted by the people I follow, it would then be more representative towards a digital representation of the in-person social structures that would or do exist. They make much less money that way though. Your average user would probably also use it less.
cccc4all 6y ago
The unequal treatment is the primary issue with the Parler deplatforming. Facebook and Twitter and Google has hosted much more and much worse content, from all sides. Yet, they are protected by the central authorities and mainstream popular media. Facebook, Twitter and Google should all be deplatformed for equal treatment under mob rules.
- bananabreakfast 6y ago
  "All sides" is not a valid argument when we're talking about a specific group that specifically planned and tried to overthrow the government. This is not a "both sides are the same" world.
  - cccc4all 6y ago
    What is your world, where this is not a "both sides are the same"? Which side are you on? Which side are your family, friends, and neighbors on? What will you do when you find someone on the other side? Most importantly, what is making you to take one side or the other?
    - bananabreakfast 6y ago
      What?
  - imgabe 6y ago
    If their sincere belief is that the election was fraudulent, they would be trying to uphold the government, not overthrow it. Reverse the situation - Trump wins the election, but you believe that many of the votes cast for him were fraudulent. Would you consider yourself to be "overthrowing" the government by rooting out the fraud and putting in the person who you believe justly won? I'm not saying they are correct about there being fraud. I don't think they are. But the assumption is they the know the fraud is a lie and they are just deliberately lying to provide an excuse to illegitimately take over the government. I don't think that's necessarily the case. I think even Trump actually believes there was fraud to extent that he actually won.
- 6y ago
coldtea 6y ago
Or, in reality speak: "Some Trump supporters/goofs discussed this protest for months on Facebook". Makes it sound like it describes some huge conspiracy with dire results instead of the equivalent of partisan people dissatisfied with the results (and driven by polarization from both sides) to discuss and do the equivalent of "Let's go into the Capitol to protest, that'll show them".
- dr-detroit 6y ago
  Thems good boahs dem din du nuffin wrong.
stretchcat 6y ago
It was planned for months, openly on Facebook in plain view of everybody. Remember that when politicians call for more intrusive surveillance in response.
- osgovernment 6y ago
  If government uses this as another 911 to push another Patriot Act, then we should suspect our government was not only aware of what was happening but they also participated in it.
- alwaysdoit 6y ago
  Yeah, it's weird that the discussion has centered around censorship, rather than like... why didn't law enforcement shut this down sooner? Or at least properly prepare for it?
  - s__s 6y ago
    When it happened, there was a reporter on CBC talking about how it was common knowledge in DC for a long time that there was a protest planned there. So indeed. The real question is why was there seemingly no preparation to handle it.
    - dgellow 6y ago
      The protest was planned, that’s for sure. But here the context is the attack, not the protest.
      - throwaway_6142 6y ago
        Can somebody explain, since this was a long planned coup attempt against a Capitol that has its own police force, in a capital that has one of the largest and most heavily armed police forces in the world, why did the guncrazy far right militants leave their guns at home? And instead behaved mostly like an out of control protest with a few dozen violent rioters? It is a very peculiar way to attempt to overthrow a government.
at_a_remove 6y ago
I recently found out that on May 30th, there were numerous Secret Service members injured in a BLM/antifa attack (oh, scratch that, "peaceful protest") on the White House. I briefly wondered why I hadn't heard about that, then I chuckled at my own naivete. Of course, one might ask how that was coordinated, but then it was a peaceful protest, so who cares?
- cochne 6y ago
  Can you provide a source please?
  - at_a_remove 6y ago
    I could, but why not search for it? As an exciting exercise, look at who reported it and, more interestingly, who didn't. Examine how the event was described, when it was described at all.
    - cochne 6y ago
      I only asked after searching for it failing to find a good source
  - Uhhrrr 6y ago
    I hadn't heard about it either, but this Guardian article backs it up: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/30/protest-washington-dc-george-floyd-white-house-trump https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/30/protest-wash...
    - teachrdan 6y ago
      From the article: "The Secret Service said in a statement on Saturday that six protesters were arrested in Washington and “multiple” officers were injured. There were no details on the charges or nature of the injuries. A spokesman for US park police said their officers made no arrests, but several suffered minor injuries and one was taken to a hospital after being struck in the helmet by a projectile." A few injuries, with perhaps only one serious enough to lead to a hospitalization. A far cry from a police officer beaten to death by a mob of right wingers invading the Capitol.
gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
Yep, Facebook, Twitter and friends are trying conveniently blame their only competition that's already predisposed to vilification on account of the political prejudices of liberals. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!
Red_Tarsius 6y ago
>The Capitol Attack Where was this rhetoric when Antifa and BLM burned and looted for months with the blessings of all corporations and the mainstream media? Surely the Capitol Hill has an insurance policy? Or does that moronic point only apply to the common folk? Susan Rosenberg literally bombed the Capitol in 1983 and now serves as vice chair of the board of directors of Thousand Currents, a "non-profit foundation that sponsors the fundraising and does administrative work for the Black Lives Matter global network, among other clients."
- 8fGTBjZxBcHq 6y ago
  idk how to tell you this in a way you'll listen to but doing things for good reasons is good and doing them for bad reasons is bad.
  - purec 6y ago
    You can't use "good intentions" to justify horrific actions.
    - 8fGTBjZxBcHq 6y ago
      ya man what they did to that target was an atrocity lol someone call the hague
    - mumblemumble 6y ago
      The idea that you can do so is pretty fundamental in politics. It's how the federal government justified the US Civil War, for example, and how the Founding Fathers justified a lot of things that tend to get glossed over in grade school history books. The debate ultimately hinges on sympathies. For someone who wholeheartedly supports BLM, the riots might be regarded as something that was regrettable, but also understandable. In the words of Martin Luther King, "A riot is the language of the unheard." The observation also works in the direction of the Capitol insurrection. The rioters were there because they believed that their opinion on the election was not being heard. Deciding which group had more grounds to be angry is left as an exercise for the reader.
oji0hub 6y ago
"Capitol Attack"? Seems like quite a bit of hyperbole eh?
Consultant32452 6y ago
If the point of the NSA was what they claimed it to be, there wouldn't have been a capitol attack.
- mikem170 6y ago
  I think you mean FBI. The NSA is supposed to only watch foreigners.
mensetmanusman 6y ago
When will Apple remove FB then? FB has said it is too big to moderate effectively, ergo in principle it is unmoderated just like Parler. FB has a point, for example, in Myanmar the platform is being used to organize genocide. There is no way FB could hire enough local moderators to deal with this without turning off the service.
- klmadfejno 6y ago
  I honestly doubt that is the case. Movements like this are going to have a small number of popular leaders. Ban people, rather than just removing some posts, and you can disrupt that social graph pretty quick.
tareqak 6y ago
I had a thought that came about as a result of this post and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25836503 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25836503 both being on the HN front page at around roughly the same time I perused HN. The thought is: why is GitHub so fast at taking down a potentially infringing code repository in response to a DMCA request but Google, Facebook, Twitter et al. so slow at taking down violence-promoting content?
- colpabar 6y ago
  Money. Isn't it obvious? Github was facing a legitimate financial threat, and Facebook probably isn't. Facebook will suffer no real consequences, and everyone will forget about their newfound moral position that censorship is for the greater good of society and continue to use Facebook.
  - chrononaut 6y ago
    Volume of requests and nuance of content also plays much more into Facebook's process than it would Github, at least on the former.
- erichocean 6y ago
  Section 230 makes them not liable.
dgellow 6y ago
Off topic thing. > Two different “occupy” event listings were written in a Nazi-style font and began circulating on Facebook in December. Do they mean a gothic/Fraktur style? Is that considered nazi in the English world? I’ve always learned it as a German script with no relation to the 3rd reich. Edit: I off course understand that neo nazi use it to express their relationship with nazi Germany, I’m just surprised to see it described as a “nazi-font”
- wccrawford 6y ago
  We live in an age where anything used by bad people is now bad, no matter how it was used in the past. That goes all the way from clear things like the swastika to not-so-clear things like the 'ok' hand sign. Yes, there are people who say you shouldn't use 'ok' hand signs now because it's used by an extremist group. So if neo-nazi use a font, that font is now, to those kinds of people, only a neo-nazi font.
  - unanswered 6y ago
    > it's used by an extremist group. If you have a legitimate source for this (i.e., not probably citogenesis https://xkcd.com/978/ https://xkcd.com/978/) I'd be very interested. As far as I can tell this was essentially made-up and has been spread via the citogenesis cycle ever since.
    - wccrawford 6y ago
      I don't. I was seriously told by someone not to use it. I did enough research to make sure they weren't totally delusional, and then said whatever I had to in order to get them to shut up and go away.
root_axis 6y ago
This has very little to do with technology. This is a culture war, and after the capitol riot the culture has shifted to openly reject the losing ideology. Conservatives are right to fight the threat of censorship because there's always a possibility this could slide out of control, but the rest of society is right to push back until they decide to drop the election fraud lies that are tearing this country apart.
- mindslight 6y ago
  As someone who is sympathetic to both cultures, this has been painful to watch. Now that it's time for the powers that be to punish the red tribe, the blue tribe is all too happy to join in the authoritarianism - eg feigning outrage at the gallows (ignoring the guillotine symbolism of the past year), assertions that speech must be policed, and calls to take right-wing terrorism "seriously" (meaning attack red tribe protests with the same zeal as blue tribe protests). Really, the government is demonstrably out of control from its charter, the economy has been coopted by the bankers, the deep state is a thing (for better and for worse), and the ruling class gives no shits about We The People. When asked in the right way, grassroots of both tribes seem to agree on these things! But rather than having any consensus, the division is stoked by journalist clickbaiters and other political hacks. The tech angle is how such nonsensical propaganda took over the red tribe so strongly - why they went "full retard" with the covid self harm and election theft hoax, well past the expected fomented-division of hating on BLM and "antifa" bogeyman. Some of that is surely due to the charismatic conman figurehead, but not all.
  - root_axis 6y ago
    > As someone who is sympathetic to both cultures, this has been painful to watch. Now that it's time for the powers that be to punish the red tribe, the blue tribe is all too happy to join in the authoritarianism - eg feigning outrage at the gallows (ignoring the guillotine symbolism of the past year), assertions that speech must be policed, and calls to take right-wing terrorism "seriously" You're equivocating around the elephant (no pun intended) in the room. Members of authority on the red team have been actively working to overturn the election since they were voted out and those attempts finally culminated in a deadly attack on the capitol. These big tech companies are policing speech, but they are doing so on their own platforms based on a philosophical opposition to the message of sedition that 50% of the red team is pushing. These companies are saying "enough is enough, if you spread election fraud misinformation you are not welcome here", that's perfectly reasonable, and forcing these companies to rebroadcast this message is the only example of authoritarianism present in this debate. > (meaning attack red tribe protests with the same zeal as blue tribe protests) This is false. Any leader on the blue team will say they would prefer all citizens be treated well rather than all citizens be abused. I'd be interested if you had any examples demonstrating otherwise. > the tech angle is how such nonsensical propaganda took over the red tribe so strongly There's a little bit of tech to it, but this was happening on cable news and talk radio long before it was happening on the internet, the only difference is that twitter is massively popular whereas Fox News is not. If Fox News had 180 million prime time viewers we'd all just say "well, they could just watch MSNBC is if they wanted!"
abvdasker 6y ago
What is the purpose of the NSA and FBI if they can’t prevent something this obvious? Wasn’t the supposed bargain that nearly unlimited surveillance of Americans would prevent terrorism? What should be done with agencies incapable of fulfilling their most basic functions?
- efwfwef 6y ago
  You'd think in-the-open discussions would have facilitated their work... but if they can't even spy on public conversations...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- 0xy 6y ago
  The Pulse nightclub shooter was reported directly to the FBI for being suspicious at a gun store prior to the attack. They did nothing. The surveillance was rolled out under the guise of protecting you, but it never has. It's for control.
  - eunos 6y ago
    What control? There's no control, else deadly attacks to the capital no less should not occur.
    - selimthegrim 6y ago
      Leverage, the goods, kompromat
- qppo 6y ago
  Why do you think they had an incentive to prevent it? The President was the one encouraging the insurrection!
  - tomcam 6y ago
    By explicitly telling people to “be peaceful“?
koolk3ychain 6y ago
I fail to see how threads like this on HN aren't political aggrandizing. Anyone who was actually curious and watched live streams from within of these idiots can realize most of this was just a jovial idiot fest. In 1983 when the weather underground literally bombed the capital was a far cry from trump lunatics walking about staying within bollards and aside from a few legitimate fools (like the one who got shot) generally just making fun of where they were. Of course, there were a few morons who supported nazi rhetoric, just like at any run of the mill antifa rally a few of those people actually have intent on killing cops and rich people. Blowing this idiocy out of proportion is just going to result in more of our civil liberties and rights being taken away.
efitz 6y ago
I thought this was “no politics” week on HN?
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  Er, no, though a link to that failed experiment from 2016 was posted within the past week, so that may have been the source of your confusion. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25785191 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25785191
  - efitz 6y ago
    Ok, thank you for clarifying!
postalrat 6y ago
Shut down Facebook and save the world!
Railsify 6y ago
Was Trump participating in the conversations on Facebook?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
asdfk-12 6y ago
Half of a billion in lobbying dollars well spent by FAANG[1] - business as usual continues for facebook despite their decreasing popularity and repeated scandal and failure, from Cambridge Analytica to Libra. Those in my immediate circle have mothballed or closed their accounts, although Instagram seems to have more holding power. 1: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ajdellinger/2019/04/30/how-the-biggest-tech-companies-spent-half-a-billion-dollars-lobbying-congress/?sh=6d9f262157c9 https://www.forbes.com/sites/ajdellinger/2019/04/30/how-the-...
- EhhhhSql 6y ago
  It's worth noting that quite a few politicians hold facebook stock, most notably Nancy Pelosi. I believe most of her current personal wealth is from facebook stock. My point is not to be skeptical of Pelosi from some partisan perspective; I have never voted Republican. I merely aim to cast doubt on whether anything will fundamentally change.
  - vinay_ys 6y ago
    This should be a pretty easy to verify claim. Do you have any source for this?
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - hurt_and_afraid 6y ago
      It's not quite "most of her current personal wealth". Here is a source: https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/nancy-pelosi-husband-bought-amazon-facebook-shares-stock-senator-investments-2020-2-1028900178?op=1 https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/nancy-pelosi...
  - jiofih 6y ago
    Did a quick fact check on this. Her husband is an investor and traded options* for tech companies including Facebook, which she disclosed out of their own will since she was attacking them at the time. Basically everyone has been trading FAANG in the past year so that tells you nothing. * which also means most likely he never actually held the stocks
bigtex 6y ago
Will Apple give them 24 hours to implement content control before removing them from the App Store?
a_new_start1 6y ago
This site is fucking disgusting. A bunch of ignorant white techbros who know fuck all. FOAD each and every one one of you
rconti 6y ago
The one thing that DIDN'T happen in a widespread fashion, as far as I can tell, was the threat of militant groups "backing up" police as election security. Of course there are always isolated incidents, but my impression is that election day itself was surprisingly free of incidents of physical intimidation.
tex32 6y ago
Don't you guys think it's odd there are so many professional photos taken inside the Capitol building during the "insurrection"? I'd post links to videos and pictures that might activate the almonds, but you wouldn't believe them because the fact checkers have already debunked it.
throwawaysea 6y ago
So with all this evidence of large volumes of abuse and contributions to the Capitol riot, why aren’t Apple, Google, and Amazon banning Facebook and Twitter? It’s because banning Parler was a move for public relations and appeasement to the incoming administration. After all, the first politician to call for the ban of Parler was AOC, who is a Democrat.
rubyist5eva 6y ago
Must be nice to defame your competition and have them essentially wiped off the map.
exabrial 6y ago
Thanks to the useless virtue signaling from the SV monopolies, these conversations are now moving underground. Nice job guys!
condomhacker 6y ago
They need to shut facebook down as it was the key platform many Trump supporters used to spread lies regarding the election.
vladletter 6y ago
if you cant access it like me: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Q9ZucDa_E3sJ:https://www.techtransparencyproject.org/articles/capitol-attack-was-months-making-facebook&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1&vwsrc=0 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Q9ZucDa...
pudger22 6y ago
“cApiToL aTtAcK...” Y’all sound like idiots with this nonsense. It wasn’t an “attack.” It was a protest which turned into a riot by a bunch of idiots no different than the protests which have turned into riots all damn summer. Spare me your damn outrage.
nathanvanfleet 6y ago
> Capitol Attack Was Months in the Making on Facebook Wow, HackerNews has embedded ads for Facebook now?
inglor_cz 6y ago
If Facebook does not face any punishment for that, even though smaller platforms did, the result cannot be good. Double standards are at least as corrosive for democracy as fringe groups organizing themselves. A lot of current political turmoil worldwide is just long shadows of the double standards of the past, these things do not have a short expiration date.
dang 6y ago
All: I know this is a little late, but those of you posting ideological flamewar comments to this thread are breaking the site guidelines. We're trying to avoid hellfire here, and we're banning accounts that feed it. Please don't feed it. HN is not for all types of discussion. It is specifically for curious conversation. Here's a test you can apply: curiosity is equally open to what's true, false, or interesting about anything. If your position is that your side is right about everything while the opposing side is wrong about everything, you have left the spectrum of curiosity gratification and are functioning in the spectrum of political battle. Those do not overlap. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20using%20primarily&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
zimm1 6y ago
How to ddos a small server
zimm1 6y ago
this is how to ddos a small server
pcf 6y ago
A lot of people tweeted about the Trump supporters attacking Capitol, and many of them wrote variations of "shoot them". This breaches Twitter's guidelines. I reported 30 of these "shoot them" tweets, but only about half of them were deleted.
Number157 6y ago
Remember when Trump was elected and the #nevertrumpers rioted for days? Or was it even weeks? I don't recall.
znpy 6y ago
nice, who's going to deplatform Facebook then ?
mancerayder 6y ago
If this is true, why did big tech and the mainstream media (and many of us here) focus on killing Parler, and not Facebook? It feels like Facebook is too useful to many people, so gets a pass. Parler, because it hosts our ideological opponents, must be shut. Despite blaming Parler and the media putting free speech in scare quotes ("free speech"), the attack was planned on Facebook all along?
sunstone 6y ago
Kind of eerie that today, Inauguration Day, there were supposed to be demonstrations at all the state capitals and DC but, from what I can tell by the news, none of these happened. I guess the old "And I'll go with you." line only works once.
protez 6y ago
In Big Tech We Trust.

616 points by alexrustic 6y ago

See also BuzzFeed News article about this: “If They Won’t Hear Us, They Will Fear Us”: How The Capitol Assault Was Planned On Facebook https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/davidmack/how-us-capitol-insurrection-organized-facebook https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/davidmack/how-us-capito...

casefields 6y ago
The government should fear its people and not the other way around. The gun of the public's ire should also be focused on class instead of in-class fighting over race. Who would rather be poor and white over rich and black? Exactly. Privilege comes from class, not skin.

Simulacra 6y ago

I'm not sure I believe this. If it was months in the making on Facebook, why did Facebook not do more to stop it? Reading this it actually gives weight that Facebook was just as responsible for the insurrection as Parler.

akmarinov 6y ago
Facebook was way more responsible than Parler.
- Simulacra 6y ago
  I don't disagree with you. The evidence appears to support that conclusion, so I'm trying to understand why Facebook is given a pass. IMO Facebook has been the single greatest catalyst for abusive online behavior in twenty years, but it's in a protected class. I would like to know why. Is it just money?
  - trident5000 6y ago
    Because dems took total power in the elections and Apple and Google know they are under the antitrust microscope. Its likely indirect bribery in hopes of a returned favor.
    - yonaguska 6y ago
      Seems like every time big tech went in front of congress- it turned into a public fishing expedition for lobbying dollars. Democrats overwhelmingly called for censorship and regulation. Republicans overwhelmingly complained of unfair treatment. Big tech responds by preemptively censoring and regulating content. I believe that regulation is coming with dems in total power. Regulation will be written and paid for by big tech as a means to consolidate regulatory capture. I think you're right, it's indirect bribery. I doubt anything will be done about it.
  - spoonjim 6y ago
    It’s also, what functions does Facebook serve beyond organizing violence? Clearly it’s a lot. You can reasonably discuss banning handguns because they are only used to commit violence. You can’t reasonably discussing the ban of all knives, telling people who ask “how am I supposed to cook?” that they just need to bite their food into little pieces.
    - brummm 6y ago
      It's probably also rooted in the fact that the owner/CEO of facebook is much richer and better connected.
      - compiler-guy 6y ago
        Apple has a long history of willingness to kneecap Facebook. So reluctance to take on Zuck is not likely the reason. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/12/16/tech/facebook-apple-ios-privacy-rules/index.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/12/16/tech...
    - 6y ago
renewiltord 6y ago
Now that I think about it: most of the planning happened on American soil under the eyes of the American Government. I'm afraid there's no choice but to abolish government.
usefulcat 6y ago
> If it was months in the making on Facebook, why did Facebook not do more to stop it? Two things: 1) If FB is seen to lean too far either left or right, it will create an opportunity for a competitor to emerge on the other side. FB is huge, so they have a lot to lose in that scenario. 2) They literally profit from the circulation of the very stuff that some would have them sensor. I don't see what is even slightly surprising about they way they've handled this. Edit: side note - I personally think #1 is likely at some point in the future. People have already gone a fair way towards segregating themselves into various social/political bubbles; why not even more self-segregation? If enough people want that, then either FB will enable it or a competitor will emerge to enable it.
- mikem170 6y ago
  >2) They literally profit from the circulation of the very stuff that some would have them sensor. And as far as we know they may have been promoting inflammatory posts to drive engagement. They keep the algorithm they use to do that secret. I think they should show posts from friends in chronological order and let users filter them, or loose their common carrier status.

trident5000 6y ago

Still in the app stores I see.

ardy42 6y ago
> Still in the app stores I see. That's because this stuff was a tiny fraction of the activity on Facebook (it's HUGE, and still mostly for baby pictures), but a substantial fraction of the content on Parler and Gab (they're tiny, and mostly for the stuff that Facebook and Twitter ban). A lot of people who object to Parler's treatment want this conceived as a simple binary, but it's more of a matter of degree an proportion.
- trident5000 6y ago
  Sounds like some serious mental gymnastics to me. And also not provable with any specific metrics.
  - seattle_spring 6y ago
    It really doesn't, but ok. Facebook has a huge moderation team. Just because some things get through that cause damage doesn't put it in the same category as a platform specifically built to enable terrorism.
    - trident5000 6y ago
      "a platform specifically built to enable terrorism" this is hyperbole. We shouldnt have 2 companies arbitrarily determining what the thresholds are for a service/app to exist.
    - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
      Parler is in the same category as facebook and twitter. It’s amazing that people have been gaslit to believe that Parler was intended for or mostly used by extremists. More amazing that people keep repeating this authoritatively when they clearly had no exposure to the service.

efwfwef 6y ago

If people had called one another to prepare this, would we say that the phone was responsible for the attack? And would we try to ban phones?

ardy42 6y ago
> If people had called one another to prepare this, would we say that the phone was responsible for the attack? And would we try to ban phones? That's a moot point, because an attack like this can't realistically be organized via one-to-one communication. It needs a broadcast medium, which the phone network isn't.
- ruffrey 6y ago
  It’s certainly easier with social media, but before that people used phones and in person meetings.
- beaner 6y ago
  Is CNN, a broadcast television network, considered a broadcast medium for attacks and terrorism for promoting and defending violent riots, and for giving reach to similar statements of support and justification from congress members such as AOC and Nancy Pelosi?
  - andrewvc 6y ago
    The idea that this summers riots were at all comparable to an attack on our nation's legislative body as it certified results of an election is repugnant and absurd. Its easier to point fingers at the other side than take any blame for your own. The insurrection at the nations capitol is a singular event, one that Republicans need to reckon with on its own terms. Some have done this, and I applaud them. They are proving to be the grown ups in the room.
    - beaner 6y ago
      What makes you think I'm on a side? I see hypocrisy all around. I think the capitol protests should not have happened, and the people who participated in them should be held accountable. I agree with you that the capitol riots and the summer riots are incomparable. The summer riots were much worse, lasted longer, targeted innocents rather than political institutions, were widely excused and often promulgated by the newsmedia and politicians, are still talked about as if they were just, continually avoid criticism by cowardly saying that such points are a "distraction" in the face of things like the capitol riots, and use dishonest sleights of hand like the changing of language from "riot" to "attack" to gaslight.

iodiocracynow 6y ago

child porno is still there but I haven't seen so much aggressive measure on what was done by private ... only by public officers and law enforcement

IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
Great example of other unwanted content that is more or less impossible to find on mainstream platforms, or even most seedy porn sites, or even the underbelly of the internet that was Parler.
- Triv888 6y ago
  It was apparently easy to find on Pornhub not long ago which is very mainstream? I usually go for the mature category to avoid it... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/opinion/sunday/pornhub-rape-trafficking.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/opinion/sunday/pornhub-ra...
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - unanswered 6y ago
    That article is very homophobic and you probably shouldn't be citing it. It's pretending that the only porn that exists is depicting women.

traveler01 6y ago

So won't get the same Parler treatment? Cool...

beefee 6y ago

It's chilling how quickly the tech industry has coalesced around oppressive and biased social media censorship policies. A scant few years ago, the tech industry was a beacon of free expression.

ryandrake 6y ago
You know what’s also chilling? Major tech platforms choosing to publish, amplify, and normalize: white supremacy, antisemitism, serious calls to violently overthrow democracy, conspiracies about the deep state cabal of satan-worshiping pedophiles, the health benefits of drinking bleach, denial of well understood scientific facts, etc. These things are fine for the town square, since people have free speech, but nobody should be handing them a megaphone that reaches 7 billion people. Free speech does not mean you are entitled to have your speech broadcast to a global audience.
- dougk16 6y ago
  Who gets the megaphone? My answer is either everybody or nobody. :)
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    Even harder: Who gets to decide who gets the megaphone? I see the problems with "nobody, therefore everybody gets the megaphone", but I see nobody that I actually trust to decide who gets it...
  - chrononaut 6y ago
    The trouble in my opinion comes when these social networks begin to promote content to the user algorithmically. My Twitter feed is filled with content from users I do not follow. It makes up the majority of my feed. Likely, even if it was content that I was following, the most "engaging", or oftentimes "enraging" content, would be the content shown first. If social networks were largely just content crafted by the people I follow, it would then be more representative towards a digital representation of the in-person social structures that would or do exist. They make much less money that way though. Your average user would probably also use it less.

cccc4all 6y ago

The unequal treatment is the primary issue with the Parler deplatforming. Facebook and Twitter and Google has hosted much more and much worse content, from all sides. Yet, they are protected by the central authorities and mainstream popular media. Facebook, Twitter and Google should all be deplatformed for equal treatment under mob rules.

bananabreakfast 6y ago
"All sides" is not a valid argument when we're talking about a specific group that specifically planned and tried to overthrow the government. This is not a "both sides are the same" world.
- cccc4all 6y ago
  What is your world, where this is not a "both sides are the same"? Which side are you on? Which side are your family, friends, and neighbors on? What will you do when you find someone on the other side? Most importantly, what is making you to take one side or the other?
  - bananabreakfast 6y ago
    What?
- imgabe 6y ago
  If their sincere belief is that the election was fraudulent, they would be trying to uphold the government, not overthrow it. Reverse the situation - Trump wins the election, but you believe that many of the votes cast for him were fraudulent. Would you consider yourself to be "overthrowing" the government by rooting out the fraud and putting in the person who you believe justly won? I'm not saying they are correct about there being fraud. I don't think they are. But the assumption is they the know the fraud is a lie and they are just deliberately lying to provide an excuse to illegitimately take over the government. I don't think that's necessarily the case. I think even Trump actually believes there was fraud to extent that he actually won.
6y ago

coldtea 6y ago

Or, in reality speak: "Some Trump supporters/goofs discussed this protest for months on Facebook". Makes it sound like it describes some huge conspiracy with dire results instead of the equivalent of partisan people dissatisfied with the results (and driven by polarization from both sides) to discuss and do the equivalent of "Let's go into the Capitol to protest, that'll show them".

dr-detroit 6y ago
Thems good boahs dem din du nuffin wrong.

stretchcat 6y ago

It was planned for months, openly on Facebook in plain view of everybody. Remember that when politicians call for more intrusive surveillance in response.

osgovernment 6y ago
If government uses this as another 911 to push another Patriot Act, then we should suspect our government was not only aware of what was happening but they also participated in it.
alwaysdoit 6y ago
Yeah, it's weird that the discussion has centered around censorship, rather than like... why didn't law enforcement shut this down sooner? Or at least properly prepare for it?
- s__s 6y ago
  When it happened, there was a reporter on CBC talking about how it was common knowledge in DC for a long time that there was a protest planned there. So indeed. The real question is why was there seemingly no preparation to handle it.
  - dgellow 6y ago
    The protest was planned, that’s for sure. But here the context is the attack, not the protest.
    - throwaway_6142 6y ago
      Can somebody explain, since this was a long planned coup attempt against a Capitol that has its own police force, in a capital that has one of the largest and most heavily armed police forces in the world, why did the guncrazy far right militants leave their guns at home? And instead behaved mostly like an out of control protest with a few dozen violent rioters? It is a very peculiar way to attempt to overthrow a government.

at_a_remove 6y ago

I recently found out that on May 30th, there were numerous Secret Service members injured in a BLM/antifa attack (oh, scratch that, "peaceful protest") on the White House. I briefly wondered why I hadn't heard about that, then I chuckled at my own naivete. Of course, one might ask how that was coordinated, but then it was a peaceful protest, so who cares?

cochne 6y ago
Can you provide a source please?
- at_a_remove 6y ago
  I could, but why not search for it? As an exciting exercise, look at who reported it and, more interestingly, who didn't. Examine how the event was described, when it was described at all.
  - cochne 6y ago
    I only asked after searching for it failing to find a good source
- Uhhrrr 6y ago
  I hadn't heard about it either, but this Guardian article backs it up: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/30/protest-washington-dc-george-floyd-white-house-trump https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/30/protest-wash...
  - teachrdan 6y ago
    From the article: "The Secret Service said in a statement on Saturday that six protesters were arrested in Washington and “multiple” officers were injured. There were no details on the charges or nature of the injuries. A spokesman for US park police said their officers made no arrests, but several suffered minor injuries and one was taken to a hospital after being struck in the helmet by a projectile." A few injuries, with perhaps only one serious enough to lead to a hospitalization. A far cry from a police officer beaten to death by a mob of right wingers invading the Capitol.

gnusty_gnurc 6y ago

Yep, Facebook, Twitter and friends are trying conveniently blame their only competition that's already predisposed to vilification on account of the political prejudices of liberals. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!

Red_Tarsius 6y ago

>The Capitol Attack Where was this rhetoric when Antifa and BLM burned and looted for months with the blessings of all corporations and the mainstream media? Surely the Capitol Hill has an insurance policy? Or does that moronic point only apply to the common folk? Susan Rosenberg literally bombed the Capitol in 1983 and now serves as vice chair of the board of directors of Thousand Currents, a "non-profit foundation that sponsors the fundraising and does administrative work for the Black Lives Matter global network, among other clients."

8fGTBjZxBcHq 6y ago
idk how to tell you this in a way you'll listen to but doing things for good reasons is good and doing them for bad reasons is bad.
- purec 6y ago
  You can't use "good intentions" to justify horrific actions.
  - 8fGTBjZxBcHq 6y ago
    ya man what they did to that target was an atrocity lol someone call the hague
  - mumblemumble 6y ago
    The idea that you can do so is pretty fundamental in politics. It's how the federal government justified the US Civil War, for example, and how the Founding Fathers justified a lot of things that tend to get glossed over in grade school history books. The debate ultimately hinges on sympathies. For someone who wholeheartedly supports BLM, the riots might be regarded as something that was regrettable, but also understandable. In the words of Martin Luther King, "A riot is the language of the unheard." The observation also works in the direction of the Capitol insurrection. The rioters were there because they believed that their opinion on the election was not being heard. Deciding which group had more grounds to be angry is left as an exercise for the reader.

oji0hub 6y ago

"Capitol Attack"? Seems like quite a bit of hyperbole eh?

Consultant32452 6y ago

If the point of the NSA was what they claimed it to be, there wouldn't have been a capitol attack.

mikem170 6y ago
I think you mean FBI. The NSA is supposed to only watch foreigners.

mensetmanusman 6y ago

When will Apple remove FB then? FB has said it is too big to moderate effectively, ergo in principle it is unmoderated just like Parler. FB has a point, for example, in Myanmar the platform is being used to organize genocide. There is no way FB could hire enough local moderators to deal with this without turning off the service.

klmadfejno 6y ago
I honestly doubt that is the case. Movements like this are going to have a small number of popular leaders. Ban people, rather than just removing some posts, and you can disrupt that social graph pretty quick.

tareqak 6y ago

I had a thought that came about as a result of this post and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25836503 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25836503 both being on the HN front page at around roughly the same time I perused HN. The thought is: why is GitHub so fast at taking down a potentially infringing code repository in response to a DMCA request but Google, Facebook, Twitter et al. so slow at taking down violence-promoting content?

colpabar 6y ago
Money. Isn't it obvious? Github was facing a legitimate financial threat, and Facebook probably isn't. Facebook will suffer no real consequences, and everyone will forget about their newfound moral position that censorship is for the greater good of society and continue to use Facebook.
- chrononaut 6y ago
  Volume of requests and nuance of content also plays much more into Facebook's process than it would Github, at least on the former.
erichocean 6y ago
Section 230 makes them not liable.

dgellow 6y ago

Off topic thing. > Two different “occupy” event listings were written in a Nazi-style font and began circulating on Facebook in December. Do they mean a gothic/Fraktur style? Is that considered nazi in the English world? I’ve always learned it as a German script with no relation to the 3rd reich. Edit: I off course understand that neo nazi use it to express their relationship with nazi Germany, I’m just surprised to see it described as a “nazi-font”

wccrawford 6y ago
We live in an age where anything used by bad people is now bad, no matter how it was used in the past. That goes all the way from clear things like the swastika to not-so-clear things like the 'ok' hand sign. Yes, there are people who say you shouldn't use 'ok' hand signs now because it's used by an extremist group. So if neo-nazi use a font, that font is now, to those kinds of people, only a neo-nazi font.
- unanswered 6y ago
  > it's used by an extremist group. If you have a legitimate source for this (i.e., not probably citogenesis https://xkcd.com/978/ https://xkcd.com/978/) I'd be very interested. As far as I can tell this was essentially made-up and has been spread via the citogenesis cycle ever since.
  - wccrawford 6y ago
    I don't. I was seriously told by someone not to use it. I did enough research to make sure they weren't totally delusional, and then said whatever I had to in order to get them to shut up and go away.

root_axis 6y ago

This has very little to do with technology. This is a culture war, and after the capitol riot the culture has shifted to openly reject the losing ideology. Conservatives are right to fight the threat of censorship because there's always a possibility this could slide out of control, but the rest of society is right to push back until they decide to drop the election fraud lies that are tearing this country apart.

mindslight 6y ago
As someone who is sympathetic to both cultures, this has been painful to watch. Now that it's time for the powers that be to punish the red tribe, the blue tribe is all too happy to join in the authoritarianism - eg feigning outrage at the gallows (ignoring the guillotine symbolism of the past year), assertions that speech must be policed, and calls to take right-wing terrorism "seriously" (meaning attack red tribe protests with the same zeal as blue tribe protests). Really, the government is demonstrably out of control from its charter, the economy has been coopted by the bankers, the deep state is a thing (for better and for worse), and the ruling class gives no shits about We The People. When asked in the right way, grassroots of both tribes seem to agree on these things! But rather than having any consensus, the division is stoked by journalist clickbaiters and other political hacks. The tech angle is how such nonsensical propaganda took over the red tribe so strongly - why they went "full retard" with the covid self harm and election theft hoax, well past the expected fomented-division of hating on BLM and "antifa" bogeyman. Some of that is surely due to the charismatic conman figurehead, but not all.
- root_axis 6y ago
  > As someone who is sympathetic to both cultures, this has been painful to watch. Now that it's time for the powers that be to punish the red tribe, the blue tribe is all too happy to join in the authoritarianism - eg feigning outrage at the gallows (ignoring the guillotine symbolism of the past year), assertions that speech must be policed, and calls to take right-wing terrorism "seriously" You're equivocating around the elephant (no pun intended) in the room. Members of authority on the red team have been actively working to overturn the election since they were voted out and those attempts finally culminated in a deadly attack on the capitol. These big tech companies are policing speech, but they are doing so on their own platforms based on a philosophical opposition to the message of sedition that 50% of the red team is pushing. These companies are saying "enough is enough, if you spread election fraud misinformation you are not welcome here", that's perfectly reasonable, and forcing these companies to rebroadcast this message is the only example of authoritarianism present in this debate. > (meaning attack red tribe protests with the same zeal as blue tribe protests) This is false. Any leader on the blue team will say they would prefer all citizens be treated well rather than all citizens be abused. I'd be interested if you had any examples demonstrating otherwise. > the tech angle is how such nonsensical propaganda took over the red tribe so strongly There's a little bit of tech to it, but this was happening on cable news and talk radio long before it was happening on the internet, the only difference is that twitter is massively popular whereas Fox News is not. If Fox News had 180 million prime time viewers we'd all just say "well, they could just watch MSNBC is if they wanted!"

abvdasker 6y ago

What is the purpose of the NSA and FBI if they can’t prevent something this obvious? Wasn’t the supposed bargain that nearly unlimited surveillance of Americans would prevent terrorism? What should be done with agencies incapable of fulfilling their most basic functions?

efwfwef 6y ago
You'd think in-the-open discussions would have facilitated their work... but if they can't even spy on public conversations...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
0xy 6y ago
The Pulse nightclub shooter was reported directly to the FBI for being suspicious at a gun store prior to the attack. They did nothing. The surveillance was rolled out under the guise of protecting you, but it never has. It's for control.
- eunos 6y ago
  What control? There's no control, else deadly attacks to the capital no less should not occur.
  - selimthegrim 6y ago
    Leverage, the goods, kompromat
qppo 6y ago
Why do you think they had an incentive to prevent it? The President was the one encouraging the insurrection!
- tomcam 6y ago
  By explicitly telling people to “be peaceful“?

koolk3ychain 6y ago

I fail to see how threads like this on HN aren't political aggrandizing. Anyone who was actually curious and watched live streams from within of these idiots can realize most of this was just a jovial idiot fest. In 1983 when the weather underground literally bombed the capital was a far cry from trump lunatics walking about staying within bollards and aside from a few legitimate fools (like the one who got shot) generally just making fun of where they were. Of course, there were a few morons who supported nazi rhetoric, just like at any run of the mill antifa rally a few of those people actually have intent on killing cops and rich people. Blowing this idiocy out of proportion is just going to result in more of our civil liberties and rights being taken away.

efitz 6y ago

I thought this was “no politics” week on HN?

dragonwriter 6y ago
Er, no, though a link to that failed experiment from 2016 was posted within the past week, so that may have been the source of your confusion. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25785191 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25785191
- efitz 6y ago
  Ok, thank you for clarifying!

postalrat 6y ago

Shut down Facebook and save the world!

Railsify 6y ago

Was Trump participating in the conversations on Facebook?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

asdfk-12 6y ago

Half of a billion in lobbying dollars well spent by FAANG[1] - business as usual continues for facebook despite their decreasing popularity and repeated scandal and failure, from Cambridge Analytica to Libra. Those in my immediate circle have mothballed or closed their accounts, although Instagram seems to have more holding power. 1: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ajdellinger/2019/04/30/how-the-biggest-tech-companies-spent-half-a-billion-dollars-lobbying-congress/?sh=6d9f262157c9 https://www.forbes.com/sites/ajdellinger/2019/04/30/how-the-...

EhhhhSql 6y ago
It's worth noting that quite a few politicians hold facebook stock, most notably Nancy Pelosi. I believe most of her current personal wealth is from facebook stock. My point is not to be skeptical of Pelosi from some partisan perspective; I have never voted Republican. I merely aim to cast doubt on whether anything will fundamentally change.
- vinay_ys 6y ago
  This should be a pretty easy to verify claim. Do you have any source for this?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - hurt_and_afraid 6y ago
    It's not quite "most of her current personal wealth". Here is a source: https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/nancy-pelosi-husband-bought-amazon-facebook-shares-stock-senator-investments-2020-2-1028900178?op=1 https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/nancy-pelosi...
- jiofih 6y ago
  Did a quick fact check on this. Her husband is an investor and traded options* for tech companies including Facebook, which she disclosed out of their own will since she was attacking them at the time. Basically everyone has been trading FAANG in the past year so that tells you nothing. * which also means most likely he never actually held the stocks

bigtex 6y ago

Will Apple give them 24 hours to implement content control before removing them from the App Store?

a_new_start1 6y ago

This site is fucking disgusting. A bunch of ignorant white techbros who know fuck all. FOAD each and every one one of you

rconti 6y ago

The one thing that DIDN'T happen in a widespread fashion, as far as I can tell, was the threat of militant groups "backing up" police as election security. Of course there are always isolated incidents, but my impression is that election day itself was surprisingly free of incidents of physical intimidation.

tex32 6y ago

Don't you guys think it's odd there are so many professional photos taken inside the Capitol building during the "insurrection"? I'd post links to videos and pictures that might activate the almonds, but you wouldn't believe them because the fact checkers have already debunked it.

throwawaysea 6y ago

So with all this evidence of large volumes of abuse and contributions to the Capitol riot, why aren’t Apple, Google, and Amazon banning Facebook and Twitter? It’s because banning Parler was a move for public relations and appeasement to the incoming administration. After all, the first politician to call for the ban of Parler was AOC, who is a Democrat.

rubyist5eva 6y ago

Must be nice to defame your competition and have them essentially wiped off the map.

exabrial 6y ago

Thanks to the useless virtue signaling from the SV monopolies, these conversations are now moving underground. Nice job guys!

condomhacker 6y ago

They need to shut facebook down as it was the key platform many Trump supporters used to spread lies regarding the election.

vladletter 6y ago

if you cant access it like me: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Q9ZucDa_E3sJ:https://www.techtransparencyproject.org/articles/capitol-attack-was-months-making-facebook&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1&vwsrc=0 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Q9ZucDa...

pudger22 6y ago

“cApiToL aTtAcK...” Y’all sound like idiots with this nonsense. It wasn’t an “attack.” It was a protest which turned into a riot by a bunch of idiots no different than the protests which have turned into riots all damn summer. Spare me your damn outrage.

nathanvanfleet 6y ago

> Capitol Attack Was Months in the Making on Facebook Wow, HackerNews has embedded ads for Facebook now?

inglor_cz 6y ago

If Facebook does not face any punishment for that, even though smaller platforms did, the result cannot be good. Double standards are at least as corrosive for democracy as fringe groups organizing themselves. A lot of current political turmoil worldwide is just long shadows of the double standards of the past, these things do not have a short expiration date.

dang 6y ago

All: I know this is a little late, but those of you posting ideological flamewar comments to this thread are breaking the site guidelines. We're trying to avoid hellfire here, and we're banning accounts that feed it. Please don't feed it. HN is not for all types of discussion. It is specifically for curious conversation. Here's a test you can apply: curiosity is equally open to what's true, false, or interesting about anything. If your position is that your side is right about everything while the opposing side is wrong about everything, you have left the spectrum of curiosity gratification and are functioning in the spectrum of political battle. Those do not overlap. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20using%20primarily&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

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this is how to ddos a small server

pcf 6y ago

A lot of people tweeted about the Trump supporters attacking Capitol, and many of them wrote variations of "shoot them". This breaches Twitter's guidelines. I reported 30 of these "shoot them" tweets, but only about half of them were deleted.

Number157 6y ago

Remember when Trump was elected and the #nevertrumpers rioted for days? Or was it even weeks? I don't recall.

znpy 6y ago

nice, who's going to deplatform Facebook then ?

mancerayder 6y ago

If this is true, why did big tech and the mainstream media (and many of us here) focus on killing Parler, and not Facebook? It feels like Facebook is too useful to many people, so gets a pass. Parler, because it hosts our ideological opponents, must be shut. Despite blaming Parler and the media putting free speech in scare quotes ("free speech"), the attack was planned on Facebook all along?

sunstone 6y ago

Kind of eerie that today, Inauguration Day, there were supposed to be demonstrations at all the state capitals and DC but, from what I can tell by the news, none of these happened. I guess the old "And I'll go with you." line only works once.

protez 6y ago

In Big Tech We Trust.