'Facebook Knows It Was Used To Help Incite The Capitol Insurrection' (buzzfeednews.com) 384
"An internal task force found that Facebook failed to take appropriate action against the Stop the Steal movement ahead of the January 6 Capitol insurrection, and hoped the company could 'do better next time,'" writes Buzzfeed:
Last month, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified in front of a House of Representatives committee that his company had done its part "to secure the integrity of the election." While the social network did not catch everything, the billionaire chief executive said, Facebook had "made our services inhospitable to those who might do harm" in the lead-up to the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Less than a week after his appearance, however, an internal company report reached a far different conclusion... Shared on Facebook's employee communication platform last month, the report is a blunt assessment of how people connected to "Stop the Steal," a far-right movement based on the conspiracy theory that former president Donald Trump won the 2020 US presidential election, used the social network to foment an attempted coup. The document explicitly states that Facebook activity from people connected to Stop the Steal and other Trump loyalist groups including the Patriot Party played a role in the events of Jan. 6, and that the company's emphasis on rooting out fake accounts and "inauthentic behavior" held it back from taking preemptive action when real people were involved...
The document contradicts Zuckerberg's statement to Congress about Facebook being "inhospitable" to harmful content about the election, and refutes chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg's January comment that the insurrection was "largely organized on platforms that don't have our abilities to stop hate, don't have our standards and don't have our transparency...." Facebook disputed the idea that the report went against Zuckerberg's and Sandberg's public statements and noted that both had said there was violative content on the platform that the company did not catch...
Facebook's researchers also outline the bureaucratic, policy, and enforcement struggles of the social giant when trying to respond to a coordinated, fast-paced movement that exploits its platform to spread hate and incite violence. Despite the company removing the most populous Stop the Steal groups from its platform, the enforcement was "piecemeal" and allowed other groups to flourish. The company admitted that it only realized it was a cohesive movement "after the Capitol Insurrection and a wave of Storm the Capitol events across the country...." Ultimately, the report says, the issue is that the company is not prepared to deal with what it calls "coordinated authentic harm."
"We learned a lot from these cases," the report says. "We're building tools and protocols and having policy discussions to help us do better next time."
But Buzzfeed's 3,400-article concludes on a skeptical note. "The report echoes previous high-profile examples where Facebook failed to act and later issued a report promising to do better..."
UPDATE (4/26): After the report's existence was revealed, access to it was suddenly restricted for many Facebook employees, Buzzfeed writes — on a new web page republishing the whole report in its entirety.
Less than a week after his appearance, however, an internal company report reached a far different conclusion... Shared on Facebook's employee communication platform last month, the report is a blunt assessment of how people connected to "Stop the Steal," a far-right movement based on the conspiracy theory that former president Donald Trump won the 2020 US presidential election, used the social network to foment an attempted coup. The document explicitly states that Facebook activity from people connected to Stop the Steal and other Trump loyalist groups including the Patriot Party played a role in the events of Jan. 6, and that the company's emphasis on rooting out fake accounts and "inauthentic behavior" held it back from taking preemptive action when real people were involved...
The document contradicts Zuckerberg's statement to Congress about Facebook being "inhospitable" to harmful content about the election, and refutes chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg's January comment that the insurrection was "largely organized on platforms that don't have our abilities to stop hate, don't have our standards and don't have our transparency...." Facebook disputed the idea that the report went against Zuckerberg's and Sandberg's public statements and noted that both had said there was violative content on the platform that the company did not catch...
Facebook's researchers also outline the bureaucratic, policy, and enforcement struggles of the social giant when trying to respond to a coordinated, fast-paced movement that exploits its platform to spread hate and incite violence. Despite the company removing the most populous Stop the Steal groups from its platform, the enforcement was "piecemeal" and allowed other groups to flourish. The company admitted that it only realized it was a cohesive movement "after the Capitol Insurrection and a wave of Storm the Capitol events across the country...." Ultimately, the report says, the issue is that the company is not prepared to deal with what it calls "coordinated authentic harm."
"We learned a lot from these cases," the report says. "We're building tools and protocols and having policy discussions to help us do better next time."
But Buzzfeed's 3,400-article concludes on a skeptical note. "The report echoes previous high-profile examples where Facebook failed to act and later issued a report promising to do better..."
UPDATE (4/26): After the report's existence was revealed, access to it was suddenly restricted for many Facebook employees, Buzzfeed writes — on a new web page republishing the whole report in its entirety.
Facebook: We'll do better. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
And that's an example of why the "apology" from the Univ. of M. shouldn't be accepted. "We'll do better next time" doesn't cost anything to promise. Restitution or at minimum compensation is required for an acceptable apology. ESPECIALLY from an institution or corporation.
Why pick on this? (Score:5, Interesting)
Facebook knows it's used to encourage suicide and to traffic drugs and to make teenagers feel bad about their lives and to publicise criminal gangs and to show punishment beatings and killing (but no nipples!) and support civil wars and Holocaust denial and superstition and fear and lies etc. etc.
They don't fucking care. Why do people keep acting as if FB is doing something surprising? They've never cared.
MZ wants a private Internet where the captive audience looks at adverts that are not provided by Google. End of. That is the business model - same as Twitter. Get them addicted, get the cash, do anything that's not (very) illegal to do it and avoid as much tax as you can - the plebs can pay for their own fucking roads and hospitals.
Social media needs to be taxed and policed like tobacco - as a public health threat.
Re:Why pick on this? (Score:4, Interesting)
> facilitated the riot, not insurrection
The label thing is complex. There was a tiny riot, a few incidents of theft, and hundreds of people engaging in unscheduled tourism.
The push to find one label to cover everybody is something the agiprop media uses as tool of disinformation.
Re:Why pick on this? (Score:4, Informative)
I'll tell you why:
Because when Parler was kicked off of AWS, the argument was "Well, extremists are organizing there! And they aren't doing enough to stop it!"
This, despite the fact that Parler was, indeed, closing accounts and forwarding information to the FBI for investigation. And the folks at Twitter and Facebook said, "Well, see, that's why we're better, we handle these things the right way!"
No nobody's surprise, Twitter and Facebook don't appear to be any better, really. Not that I fault them; there's only so much one can do to police a public forum with a large userbase. But it was a great excuse for a rapidly growing competitor to be crushed at a critical moment. For being disingenuous and predatory I fault Facebook quite a lot.
Re: (Score:2)
for the entire United States. This is bigger than some poor teen being bullied or some lucky teen scoring some weed.
FB has been facilitating the same stuff in other countries for years. It's nothing new.
Deplatform Facebook! (Score:2)
That's the only reasonable course of action, given that they knew from past history that people used their platform to plan this kind of activity, and yet they did not have effective measures in place to stop that planning.
Kick them out of cloud hosting platforms. Delete their accounts on other social media platforms. Evict them from data centers, or refuse to carry their Internet traffic. Then make them grovel to be treated the same way as anyone else.
That's how this works, right?
Re: (Score:2)
The Great Unarmed Insurrection of 2021 (Score:5, Insightful)
If those clowns who rioted on January 6th thought they could overthrow the US government without firearms, they were delusional.
As far as overturning the will of the people goes, the Democrats actually objected to more states' electors in 2016-17 than the Republicans objected to in 2020-21 [newsweek.com]. The difference was that the Democrats could not get any senators to go along with the charade, and the Republicans could. In an interesting irony, it was the lead impeachment manager [npr.org] in the House who was also part of the effort to overturn electors in 2016-17. [realclearpolitics.com]
The reason I post this was because a lot of questions were begged in the posting. And on a side note, it's also for situations like this that we should not allow the term "begging the question [google.com]" to become dumbed down to mean "raise the question", and lose its original meaning of "assuming the proposition you're trying to prove is true and basing your argument on that assumption."
Anyhoo, just wanted to get this out of the way. Please continue with the dicussion of how Facebook may or may not have facilitated the riot, not insurrection [google.com], of 6 January 2021. A shameful incident IMO, regardless of which side of the aisle one is in.
The US highway administration knew it was used to (Score:3, Insightful)
As did EVERY COMMON CARRIER-like service in the US.
They are not culpable. They didn't "help" in the sense of intentionally rendering aid. They provided the same help they give to all users of their services. That's the "common" in "common carrier", and it's a distinction we absolutely need to respect.
Used to organize *actual* insurrection too. (Score:2, Insightful)
What is the "appropriate reaction"? (Score:2)
...found that Facebook failed to take appropriate action
The article does not say what the appropriate action would be. What should Facebook have done?
By the time Facebook removed it [the Stop the Steal Facebook group], on Nov. 5, it had become a movement, amassing more than 300,000 members in a 24-hour span with more than a million people wanting to join.
So was Facebook supposed to... what... have their employees read the messages of 300,000 people and apply a judgement decision as to which ones to block? How exactly do you do that? This problem will continue because it is not feasible for Facebook to judge such things. Just like when
...internal company report reached a far different conclusion: Facebook failed to stop a highly influential movement from using its platform to delegitimize the election, encourage violence, and help incite the Capitol riot.
Just like how AT&T or Verizon did not shut down phone calls or text messages that discussed the insurrection. And Google,
Sounds to me like (Score:3)
I get it. (Score:2)
Ummm... DUH! (Score:2)
Of course they knew, it's pretty difficult to miss shit like that when they monitor everything you read and type while simultaneously tracking your purchase and browsing history across countless other sites.
mUh InSuRrEcKsHuN. (Score:2)
Knowing and knowingly are two different things (Score:4, Interesting)
It matters not so much is if Facebook knew they permitted it as much as whether they knowingly permitted it.
Only one of these implies any particular intent, and in something like this, I would think that intent matters.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Spare Us (Score:5, Insightful)
Americans just want their side to win at any cost and fuck democracy, let's be honest with ourselves please.
Democracy != popular vote. (Score:5, Insightful)
the side who lost the popular vote would shake the other side's hand and say: "good game". There would be no jerrymandering and no voter suppression.
Agreed. Most people are interested only in their team winning, even if the team doesn't do what they want. This is why George Washington warned us not to form political parties.
Nobody wants democracy. If they did, there would be no electoral college.
Democracy != popular vote. Popular vote is just one way, and not necessarily the best. Many nations choose their highest office by a proxy vote by their representatives, or by coalition. Heck: the ancient Greeks drew lots for some offices! The US electoral college avoids one problem with direct election of the president: unequal geographic representation. Since the US has uneven population distribution, a direct election would mean rural areas have almost no say in the election. By giving every state at least 3 votes, regardless of population, it means those states have some say in the election and incentivizes candidates to pay attention to the issues there.
Re:Democracy != popular vote. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
And the D's will change theirs. They'll abandon the Interstate Compact in a flash if it means forcing them to elect an R.
OP was correct though. The idiots at the capital should have headed to the local mall.
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry but this is nonsense. EC incentivizes pandering to swing states and nothing else. It needs to DIAF. Biden will give DC statehood, then PR, and then when EC favors D's, watch R's change their tune about the electoral college in a fucking heartbeat.
I really don't understand people who rail against the EC but completely ignore how the structure of the Senate is a much bigger concentration of power irrespective of population.
Both are fine and those whining just want their particular outcome. As soon as they lose the next election, or their Green Party candidate still only gets a blip on the radar, they would blame something else.
Re: (Score:2)
I really don't understand people who rail against the EC but completely ignore how the structure of the Senate is a much bigger concentration of power irrespective of population.
Everyone knows the Senate is a concentration of power. That is desirable. What is not desirable is that the Senate is lopsided. The cap on the number of senators and the means of assigning senate seats to states, when assembled, result in a deliberately lopsided lack of representation for progressive states.
Re:Democracy != popular vote. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
And two Carolinas, and two Virginias, the latter of which, which when the constitution was written, were a single Virginia and yet...
You shouldn't concede that (Score:4, Insightful)
So far-- (Score:5, Insightful)
So, you expect that Biden and his Party will wipe their ass on the Constitution,
We haven't seen that. What we did see is a Republicans make repeated attempts to repudiate the Constitution during the vote counting process, including trampling on state's rights to do so (wait, they say TEXAS should be allowed to direct the Federal government to overthrow GEORGIA's vote counting??)
rig the system so they can cheat forever,
We haven't seen that. What we did see is the Republican party working very hard to gerrymander state congressional districts [thefulcrum.us] so that even though more people voted for Democrats, the Republicans have a majority of congressmen. That's rigging the system.
and then you'll laugh at the GOP when they want to put it right?
We haven't seen that. What we saw was that the Voting Security Act-- to make it harder to tamper with election results-- was blocked by Republican senators. [thehill.com] That was back when people were worried about the Russians trying to tamper with the election, and the Republican party line was the Russians didn't do anything so there was no need to make elections more secure.
Re:Democracy != popular vote. (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not so much the electoral college as the votes that come along with it. You could do away with it and still have state-based numbers of votes totalling senators + congresspeople.
Doing away with that is the goal. And of political expediency, so such changes should not be done quickly because of political passions of the moment, something demagogues are good at.
Keep in mind this system was the cost of creating the federal government. The many little states did not want the few large ones, and their interests dominating them. Hence the Senate, where all states sit at the round table as equals.
This "not democracy" claim is a direct attack on what the many little states feared, and just points out with blinking lights why you might not want a few giant states dominating the whole nation.
Remember, our nation is great because it is free, not because it is a democracy. Democracy is the servant of freedom, not it's boss.
Re:Democracy != popular vote. (Score:5, Informative)
Democracy != popular vote. Popular vote is just one way, and not necessarily the best.
Anything else is watered down democracy.
If popular vote is not the best way, then the education system has failed, because it SHOULD be the best way.
The EC was explicitly deliberately created to preserve power for slave states. EXPLICITLY, DELIBERATELY [time.com]. This is literally not open to debate, because we have records.
Heck: the ancient Greeks drew lots for some offices!
And just look at how well that worked out for ancient Greece!
Re: (Score:3)
Anything else is watered down democracy.
Democracy is four wolves and a lamb deciding what to have for lunch.
Unlimited democracy is as dangerous to liberty as despotism. A good system of checks and balances, forces in opposition, to dampen that power is a necessary thing.
What the Electoral College Actually Does (Score:3)
The US electoral college avoids one problem with direct election of the president: unequal geographic representation.
That is one (desired) effect of the apportionment of electors. It is by no means the biggest effect of the electoral college.
Since the US has uneven population distribution, a direct election would mean rural areas have almost no say in the election. By giving every state at least 3 votes, regardless of population, it means those states have some say in the election and incentivizes candidates to pay attention to the issues there.
It would be interesting if the electoral college did that. But the main effect of the electoral college is to amplify the power of large states that are nearly evenly split between the candidates, not rural states. You simply don't see candidates campaign in Wyoming; nobody cares, it's not a swing state. The "winner take all by state" effect, however, is HUGE. You see candidates
popular voteother type of vote (Score:2)
And instead you have a WORST system : rural area which haws so much representation that the majority of the population do not count. The US system is much much worst than any other democracy : instead of the mob rule, you have the minority rule.
Re:Democracy != popular vote. (Score:4, Informative)
The US electoral college avoids one problem with direct election of the president: unequal geographic representation.
Maybe, but that isn't its reason for existence.
Its reason for existence is to prevent states with limited suffrage from having less say than states with greater suffrage.
It's a direct graft of the 3/5ths compromise into the Presidential election.
From the architect of the system, himself:
"The people at large was in his opinion the fittest in itself. It would be as likely as any that could be devised to produce an Executive Magistrate of distinguished Character. The people generally could only know & vote for some Citizen whose merits had rendered him an object of general attention & esteem. There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of the Negroes. The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to fewest objections."
In the first several elections, New Hampshire had more voters than Virginia, with 6x the population.
The South would never sign off on such a system.
These days where poll taxes are outlawed, and direct voter suppression is outlawed (this was *not* the case in the early US, where you needed to own acreage in order to vote in Southern states) the electoral college does not serve its intended purpose, since its intended purpose is outlawed.
We can argue that it serves a new purpose (the geographical one) but it was never its intended purpose.
Re: (Score:2)
the EC was a solution to a problem of its time
Yeah, it was "how do we get the slave states to support the union", and the answer was "give them more influence over the vote than they deserve". Now we have to fix the fix.
Lots want Democracy (Score:2, Insightful)
This isn't about one side winning or losing, this is about very, very wealthy and powerful people using that wealth and power to create a system that lets them claim 50%+ of all wealth globally.
Thi
Re:Spare Us (Score:5, Insightful)
No matter what country it's in, people seem to think the popular vote should just be it.
We have the issues in Canada. People wonder why certain smaller provinces have certain number of seats and this or that.
You have to go back to the founding of the country. Believe it or not, in Canada our last province, Newfoundland only joined Canada in like 1949.
Why would a small state/province decide to join a union if they would be basically ignored on any issues. Due to their smaller population, their votes would be meaningless. They wouldn't. No doubt when the United States was being formed, the smaller states wouldn't have joined either.
So when the electoral process was being formed, they included certain guarantees in an attempt to make sure the smaller areas have some say.
You can't just roll it all back now and say, sorry, now that we suckered you in, we're going to remove the protections so only the popular vote matters, which means you don't matter. Not to mention that leaving a country/union is often highly discouraged. Canada is a bit more friendlier to it. As recently as the 1990s Quebec was on the cusp of leaving canada. They felt out of place being French and wanted to do their own thing. Again... similar to just being smaller, Canada made quite a few guarantees to Quebec to get them into Canada. We can't just take it all back now.
Just as another example. Quebec has a fair amount of leeway to protect it's French language/culture that just wouldn't fly in other provinces and would probably violate rights and be sued out of existence.
But like I said, Quebec probably would have never joined English Canada without these guarantees. So I think it's fair that they keep them.
The basic point is, the popular vote is not more DEMOCRATIC. Smaller states/provinces would not have joined to begin with and you can think of the electoral college or other guarantees as democracy on region.
Some, not all [Re:Spare Us] (Score:4, Insightful)
Nobody wants democracy.
No. What you wrote supports the statement some people don't want democracy. Not no people.
If they did, there would be no electoral college,
Not quite. I don't like the electoral college (more particularly, I don't like the winner-take-all-by-state counting of delegates to the electoral college), but it is democracy. It happens to be democracy with a weird weighing factor.
But when you say "nobody"-- not true. Many people don't like the electoral college and want to change it. It turns out that changing the constitution was (deliberately) made to be very difficult. The fact that it hasn't changed doesn't mean that nobody wants to change it, it means that nobody had the sufficient supermajority to do so.
and the side who lost the popular vote would shake the other side's hand and say: "good game".
Agreed. Ronald Reagan's inaugural speech [yale.edu] is to the point, where he starts out by praising Jimmy Carter for doing exactly this.
There would be no jerrymandering and no voter suppression.
Many people want that.
I can't even imagine an America where people honestly cared about democracy.
You lack imagination, ok.,
Americans just want their side to win at any cost and fuck democracy, let's be honest with ourselves please.
If you said "some Americans" I would agree with you.
Learn to scroll [Re:Some, not all] (Score:2)
Are you aware the slashdot has a scroll up feature so you can see the exact words that a comment is responding to? And their context?
Oh, wait, you're an anonymous coward. You barely know how to use a computer.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
These Social Media companies have been promising to do better for years now, yet their sites are use to pushed an increasingly more radical agenda to people.
Sometimes a companies says "I am sorry" then they will by their own free will push hard to make sure they fix the problems. I would like to point out Volkswagen with its deaslegate, VW did more than just what the punishment had them do, they used it as an opportunity to greatly change their business model, towards a greater push towards all electric.
Re: (Score:4, Insightful)
People are genuinely much more worried about right-wing insurrection than about left-wing civil rights protests because the worst-case outcome for latter is inaction, whereas the worst-case outcome for the former is the end of democracy.
Is this sarcasm? The left-wing "mostly peaceful" protests of the last year resulted in millions of dollars of damage to businesses (many of them minority owned). Several business owners had their entire livelihood destroyed. The left burned down an entire police station! The left set fire to a building and tried to keep people locked inside it. Is what happened in the Chaz autonomous area what you consider Democracy? Are burning down and looting businesses Democracy?
Go ask these people what they consider to be the worst case scenario of left-wing civil rights "protests":
https://www.foxnews.com/us/deadly-unrest-people-have-died-amid-george-floyd-protests-across-us
https://www.wsj.com/articles/looting-is-second-blow-for-reeling-businesses-especially-in-minority-neighborhoods-11591214595
Remind us, how many innocent people were killed during the Jan 6th riot? How many buildings were burned down?
Re: (Score:3)
Explain to me how burning down a thousand buildings in minneapolis ALONE is a "civil rights protest". Or killing innocent people for protecting their homes, families, and businesses. How was a bunch of white child raping pedophiles and other violent felons roaming the streets burning down and looting businesses a "civil rights" protest?
How are heavily armed militants seizing control of an entire downtown area, seceeding from the US, and murdering a half dozen people for disobeying their proclamations a "civ
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Does America still stand for killing unarmed innocent black people? I know your country was founded on genocide and slavery. But that's meant to be in the past isn't it?
Or is the right really trying to bring those back, now that they lost a free and fair democratic election?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Spare Us (Score:5, Informative)
Tony Timpa [dallasnews.com] would like to disagree with you.
Or at least, he would, if he were alive. Tell us if this rhymes with any event you know of: Police arrest unarmed man who is high on drugs in response to a minor report. Claiming that he was struggling with them, a group of five police officers shove him to the ground and restrain him. He pleads for his life with them ("You're gonna kill me!") as they kneel on him, pressing him to the ground for fourteen minutes, several minutes after he clearly loses consciousness. He dies during that event, which is clearly and entirely caught on video.
Tell us if any of this stops sounding familiar: Timpa's arms and legs were cuffed before the police threw him to the ground. Two of the police officers faced no charges; the other three faced only misdemeanor charges, which were later dismissed. A federal court dismissed the government from the family's wrongful-death lawsuit, then later ruled in favor of the individual defendants because of qualified immunity.
What is the relevant difference between Tony Timpa and George Floyd?
Re:Spare Us (Score:5, Insightful)
Killing too many unarmed black people causing the riots.
Killing too many people period. I'm not saying everything is fine. Poor people, and black especially, are doing it tough in the US.
But this idea that police shooting is a direct result of racism? You can look at the data, helpfully gathered on wikipedia.
For one thing the proportion of people shot who are black is less than might be expected from other stats.
People in black communities are far more likely to be victims of violent crime. They have higher policing, they call police more.
Blacks are far more likely to be involved in confrontations with police. Maybe 50% of total violent crime. Yet less than a quarter of those killed by police are black.
But here is what I find interesting: only a tiny proportion of police shootings are controversial. In most cases, the deceased was armed and directly threatening the life of another person. Take away the controversial cases, and the rate of police shootings in the US is still far, far higher than any other developed country.
Black, white, or whatever. Even if police never made a mistake, and always followed procedure, the rate would still be sky-high. The real problem goes deep in American society, and is not as simple as race, or police training. I'm sure there are many factors, but in comparing the US to other countries, one factor stands out starkly: handguns. Police are scared, and rightly so. You can probably think of other things too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
A big problem is that most police departments preferentially hire veterans with combat experience. Sure, they give them a couple of afternoon sessions in deescalation training, but under stress the four or more years that they were trained to meet resistance with overwhelming violence will win out.
Re:Spare Us (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you have evidence to support that claim? There's at least one famous case [theguardian.com] where a (white) military veteran who became a police officer was wrongfully fired because he didn't shoot a suspected-suicidal person with a gun during a standoff, because he didn't think the civilian with a gun was a threat to anyone else. Longer writeup [propublica.org] if you want more of the story. He credited his military training with helping him assess that the armed man -- whose gun had no bullets -- was not acting like a threat. Two more-experienced police officers shot the man to death within seconds of arriving on the scene.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And yet angrily oppose changing the movement slogan to the more inclusive term "All" from the race driven "Black" or even just a shift to "Lives Matter" or "Civilian Lives Matter." As soon as you apply the lens of race you've made the issue racist and you'll seek racist solutions.
That is why you now see black mobs surrounding court houses indicating
Re: (Score:3)
And yet angrily oppose changing the movement slogan to the more inclusive term "All" from the race driven "Black" or even just a shift to "Lives Matter" or "Civilian Lives Matter."
Why is this a problem?
There is no "Only" in the phrase "Black Lives Matter". There is no "More" in the phrase "Black Lives Matter". If you think there is, it is you adding it.
If all lives actually mattered to you, then black lives would matter to you.
and skewing of probability to group statistics losing sight of the actual probability any individual faces
Statistics like black men are twice as likely to be killed by police than everyone else? How is that "skewing"? (And if you're going to follow the usual script and talk about total numbers of deaths, you need to learn the importance of per-capita statistics
Re:Spare Us (Score:5, Insightful)
> Police are scared
Then they should quit their job - it's not even in the top ten most dangerous jobs in the country (I think it was hovering around #30 last I checked). Roofers and delivery drivers, among many other jobs, are all at much greater risk of dying on the job than cops are.
Re: (Score:2)
The last I looked, if you removed automobile accidents (mostly caused because they drive like assholes) they were number 28. If you left accidents in they were number 17 or 19 depending on the survey.
Re: Blacks are *not* more likely to commit crime (Score:3)
In George Floyd's case the report makes it very clear Mr Floyd died of an unrelated medical condition.
He died in custody, after saying he can't breath, with onlookers saying he's not breathing, begging the officer to check for breathing or take a pulse.
Can someone have a heart attack while you take them into custody, sure, shit happens, drugs stress acts of god. Can you sit on them as it happens, sure... shit happens? I mean you were distracted or something, right? Can you be told by concerned citizens that the person is dying, and do nothing as they slowly die from an "unrelated medical condition"? Tha
Sorry, I wasn't being clear (Score:4, Insightful)
The phrase is "We write the reports". I was made aware of it by YouTuber Beau Of The Fifth Column. Until then I didn't pay the police report any mind. Finding out what's written in it vs what actually happened was chilling. It makes me wonder how many reports like that are out there...
Re:Spare Us (Score:5, Insightful)
The police have known since the 1970s that the best way to change a peaceful demonstration into a riot is to meet it with disproportionate force, second-most efficient is to remove the leadership so the protest turns into an uncontrolled mob.. They've known this for almost half a century, and it's in their training materials for every management position in policing, every SWAT team, every riot squad. Even the Israeli mercenaries that are training some of these departments know it. So what happened? In the 3% of protests which turned violent the police 1) arrested all the leaders they could put their hands on, and 2) met the previously peaceful protest with chemical weapons and rubber bullets.
Mission Accomplished! Now they can paint the entire movement with the same broad brush.
Re: (Score:3)
And out come the conspiracy theorists. Apparently the left isn't satisfied publishing books saying jews are "the face of capital" and claiming the holocaust is part of a white supremacist plot, they now need to blame a secret jewish conspiracy for why BLM riots caused two billion dollars in damages and killed 40-50 innocent people in just a few months. [arcdigital.media]
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Where you get your numbers?
George Soros.
You got yours from Fox, so lets call it even and let reality decide instead...
Centuries of racial injustice vs losing a free and fair election.
One group of people would seem to have a lot more reason to protest. Do they not?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But I think you're missing the bigger picture here. Sure, the danger to black men is "only" twice the average. But police violence is a leading cause of death for young men in the US, whereas for most other democratic countries, it's not even a statistical error. So the problem here is that the police is inordinately dangerous to *everybody*. That's the problem BLM protestors are t
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Okay, so not a primary source and an obvious anti-gun bias but they provide sources and there is nothing like using the phacked stacks from the same political bias on a different issue. Young adult deaths below. Death by cop doesn't even make the list and 1 in 1000 means you have a 99.9% of wasting your time EVER having a single moment of worry over this issue vs 99.98%.1 in 2000. Of course those 1 in 1000 vs 1 in 2000 numbers are sourced from you.
https://www.verywellhealth.com/top-caus
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
and there is a cop across the street you are several thousand times more likely to die crossing the street than as a consequence of your interaction with the officer.
About twice as likely, actually, making you off by 3 orders of magnitude.
1/1000 may seem small, but it's really not.
It should be more like 1/1,000,000.
Other than that, you're dead on that death-by-cop-with-a-small-dick isn't a leading cause of death. But it's still *way* too fucking high.
If only BLM wasn't a racist terrorist group.... (Score:2, Informative)
Then you comment would make sense. Case in point. Days after the brookly center incidient, a cop killed a guy in Burnsville, MN. BLM was all setup to march and protest and do their "peaceful thing" until. it was report he was white!
Re: (Score:2)
Attempting to dismantle the democratic foundations (Score:4, Informative)
Well, that may be what CNN wants you to believe, but it's complete and total bullshit. We had months of
Maybe a week or two of
black-clad anarchists tearing down our history
What, you mean pulling down statues of Confederate leaders? That's not "tearing down history," that is tearing down a deliberate lie that the Confederacy was a noble endeavor, not a war started by slaveholders who were terrified that the people they held as property might get their freedom.
and attempting to dismantle the democratic foundations of the nation
I can't recall any "black clad activists" trying to dismantle democracy. I'm not even sure what you're referring to. I do remember seeing a number of left-wing voter-registration drives, but that would be trying to strengthen the "democratic foundations of the nation," not dismantle them.
, and one day where people resisted what they believed to be a usurpation of the democratic process.
The constitution is very clear on how the presidential electoral votes are counted. The insurrectionists tried to stop that process. That is literally "attempting to dismantle the democratic foundations of the nation".
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
We watched the country burned and looted all last year, plenty of which was planned on Big Tech, so spare us your crocodile tears over riots.
Yes, all seven square blocks in the entire country made up to look like that’s what happened everywhere. Minneapolis isn’t even being printed on maps anymore cause it’s gone right? According to Fox News, no one must live in Seattle anymore as it’s just smoldering ruins now. The reality is the vast majority of the damage is limited to a few square blocks or less in any city. Maybe if the state backed murders stopped, or even just slowed down a bit, people wouldn’t be as angr
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a bit difficult to make clear statistical judgments about racially motivated crimes, si
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you know the single most effective way to avoid harm during an interaction with a traffic stop?
The media would have you believe it's down to your skin color, but that's obviously false. No, it's to simply not resist. That's it. That's the magic. If suspects stopped fighting the cops, no one would get hurt.
Frankly, I want cops to have access to use of force, up to and including deadly force. If you're dumb and violent enough to warrant lethal force, I'm OK with you getting your dumbass shot.
Re: (Score:3)
Someone should have repeated that statement to Ashli Babbitt.
Maybe you can help clear some things up for me. Why is the penalty for resisting arrest death and why are the police tasked with carrying out the death sentence?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
I love how you try to minimize what your side did in Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis, LA, etc, murders, fires, etc
Portland [theintercept.com]
Seattle [politico.com]
Minneapolis [go.com]
etc. [usnews.com]
Let's put that on a scale.
The scale says "white supremacists are doing most of the property damage"
93% of Racial Justice Protests (Score:2)
In other words, nearly all of the violence seems to have been set off by cops and right wing extremists. And that's before we get into a discussion of how riots are the last resort of the desperate and that if we could get the right wing to stop blocking reform wouldn't happen in th
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The real question few people seem to be asking is why wasn't the Capitol prepared for possible unrest?
To the contrary, a lot of people have been asking that question-- even the unapologetically liberal Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com] . Not to mention Senate and House inquiries.
But that is a different question. It is possible for more than one question to be worth asking.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It's official now that agent Sicknick died of a stroke
We knew that. The other thing we know is that the cops want to preserve their right to use pepper spray etc. on protesters. If they admit that it can cause someone to have a stroke then that interferes with their whole game.
the zip ties story was wrong
So he didn't bring the zip ties with him [insider.com], but he still felt he had to secure some... for what? He wanted them for tidying up his data closet?
the large ammo delivery was wrong
Oh, you bought his excuse that he accidentally drove into the restricted area checkpoint "after getting lost in D.C. because I'm a country boy."? T
Re: (Score:2)
Several of the insurrectionists were armed, that's not a mistake. Most of them weren't armed with firearms, but so what? They managed to kill a couple people anyway.
What in the world are you talking about?
Four people died at the huge event, all of them pro-Trump. Two cardiac events, one drug overdose, and one unarmed woman shot by police.
Re:I didn't know that (Score:4, Insightful)
Still looks like a rowdy demonstration which got out of control to me, not an insurrection.
The stated goal of the demonstration was to overturn the result of a democratic process by forcibly removing elected representatives. How is that not insurrection? I looked up the definition of insurrection and it didn't mention hostage plans, zip ties, or ammunition. I know an individual who attended the event, and that person told me the problem is that they "should have gone further and taken-out those dems."
what is left of it all?
A destroyed capital building, a democratic process delayed, a woman shot, $30 million in damages... Are you willing to forget the substance of the event because a few straw men were debunked?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The stated goal of the demonstration was to overturn the result of a democratic process by forcibly removing elected representatives.
Stated by who? Can you point us to this information? Oh, wait, you can't.
A destroyed capital building
What? The Capitol wasn't destroyed. What? You guys need to get out of your house. You don't know what insurrection is, yet.
Re:I didn't know that (Score:5, Informative)
Stated by who? Can you point us to this information? Oh, wait, you can't.
I certainly can. But seriously: are you telling me that you are not aware of people calling for violence on January 6th? I googled that for you. I even know one of the attendees in person, who told me that their only regret was they they "should have gone further remove the dems." Check it out:
"There will be a BIG Civil War if Congress allows the election to be stolen." [businessinsider.com] So that guy was there to start a civil war.
"Who would you like to see 'dispatched' first? 1) Nancy Pelosi 2) John Roberts 3) Pence 4) other (please name) I was leaning towards Nancy, but it might have to be Pence." [buzzfeednews.com]
"Where we’ll storm offices and physically remove and even kill all the D.C. traitors and reclaim the country". [thedailybeast.com]
You can even read some of these quotes on congress's own report on the topic [house.gov]
What? The Capitol wasn't destroyed.
I apologize for my exaggeration. It was merely damaged. [npr.org]
I realize that most of them were there just to have tea with their representative, to explain through their brilliant oration as to why they should nullify the election, and explain the constitutional basis for that. If they failed, the plan was to go home and support Joe Biden because America comes first. Buuut, there were a few bad apples in the bunch.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
a woman shot
An unarmed woman. Shot by police. The only gun casualty at the event.
Re:I didn't know that (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
B
Re: (Score:2)
The administration offered help, repeatedly and in advance. They offered to send in the Guard just in case.
False [westernslopenow.com]. All of the efforts to bolster security on the 6th were shut down and stopped by republicans or republican appointed officials.
But, the people who are directly responsible for protecting the Capitol - the people who give the Capitol Police their orders and equipment - are, in the end, whoever runs Congress. Who was running Congress at the time? Oh, Democrats. So, you're saying Republicans are to blame for Democrats refusing help, refusing to provide riot gear, and for the orders Democrats issued to the Capitol Police?
False. There is no governor of DC because it is not a state so that duty falls to the POTUS, not congress. At least learn the basics before you rant completely fake news.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe you should look into who is responsible for capital security. Hint it isn't POTUS and it isn't someone who would be considered a friendly party.
The only thing Trump could have done is brought in the guard sooner. Also I would been pretty fucking happy to see my supporters protesting on my behalf marching down Penn Ave. too; that is all perfectly legal to do you know. I don't think I would thought much of it until I saw people getting crazy and breaking into restricted areas either.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"Still looks like a rowdy demonstration which got out of control to me, not an insurrection"
Only if you conveniently forget the planning of the Proud Bois and the former alleged president tell them to "stand back" and wait, it's going to be "wild".
Are you really that daft?
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know if you read the news but for a month on end Sicknick was bludgeoned to death with a fire extinguisher and this was used to demonstrate how dangerous the crowd was . "He was not wounded and died afterwards from a stroke" is an entirely different story which adds to the other stories which all turned out to have been heavily exaggerated.
My point of view on this is that this should have been treated as a riot like any other one. There were things which got out of hand, there was potential danger
Re: (Score:2)
Law enforcement had very clear information [nytimes.com] that there was likely to be serious unrest on January 6th, and they were told in advance to limit their response. The FBI also [usatoday.com] had serious warnings about potential attacks.
The government agencies did not fail in their threat identification or analysis. They failed in their readiness and response.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Virtually everything about the "insurrection" narrative has been shown to be false.
Okay, enough Breitbart for you and time for your meds.
So excuse me if I retain some slight skepticism about anything you might choose to "report" about this event.
You don't get to play the pity card when repeating flat out lies and not even having the common decency to post citations to your ludicrous claims. But hey it's mid-afternoon European time, that means the russian troll farms are awake so you get a few mod points. Enjoy it while it last, no doubt your post will be modded back down where it belongs tomorrow.
Re:um, yeah (Score:4, Informative)
Okay, enough Breitbart for you and time for your meds.
I first heard of Sicknick's actual cause of death from a certified crackpot.
Remember laughing it off at the time until I checked and found out the crackpot was right. After all of the media coverage, talks of fire extinguishers at the second impeachment trial and hunts for killers this is what you get for taking anything anyone with an agenda has to say at face value.
Re: (Score:2)
Virtually everything about the "insurrection" narrative has been shown to be false.
So they didn't injure 150+ police officers? They didn't break into the capitol building? They didn't smear feces on the walls or parade around with the confederate flag? Your focus on fine details is a way of misleading.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There was no insurrection, you dumb motherfucker.
The density of stupid per word in your post is astounding. I've never seen a post quite so efficient at showing off stupidity.
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah, right on!!! Those dastardly Republican judges that rejected all the voter fraud claims were being paid under the table by George Soros. Hillary was whispering sweet nothings in their ears. They threw out all their years of legal training just to stop their own Republicans from winning.
Re: (Score:3)
If it's not perpetrated by the left it's just sparkling loitering.