A Very Online Insurrection
Wednesday, as I took a break from the joys of my tenth straight month of remote work to eat lunch, I witnessed something I never thought I’d see. For only the second time in the history of the United States, the flag of an enemy army entered the nation’s capitol. However, unlike in 1814, this was not the result of a military defeat, but was instead a self-inflicted wound. We watched, in real time, as a unique form of political violence was unleashed the likes of which America had not seen since the Redemption era. As much as January 6th was a disaster of disingenuous politics, it was, perhaps more importantly, a failure of our information space.
Before I continue, let’s pause to appreciate the gravity of what could have happened. The rioters were not allowed to remain in the Capitol long enough to do more serious property damage. Photos show some rioters came equipped with zip-ties, clearly hoping to take hostages. The Secret Service stopped that from happening. Despite the presence of multiple firearms, only one person was shot and killed, while four others died during the riot. This was potentially one of the most serious breaches of the security of confidential documents in recent US history. With unauthorized personnel inside the Capitol, any documents or systems stored in Representatives’ offices that were breached, including the Speaker’s, must be assumed to be compromised. Reports indicate that two or more bombs were planted in Washington, one at the Republican National Committee, and a possible second at the headquarters of their Democratic counterparts. It’s unclear who did this, but without the intervention of the FBI and ATF, January 6th, 2021 could have been made even more infamous than it is now destined to become.
The first thing I noticed about the crowd or rioters was how ‘online’ its members were. I wasn’t the only one. Pepe masks, Q banners, Punisher skulls, “Kekistan” flags…all the chatroom oddities that friends and colleagues in the information security space have joked about for years were suddenly manifesting in real life, in the Capitol, alongside dismaying symbols from the darkest days of our history. A group of men wore sweatshirts with an antisemitic logo whose implication is so heinous I won’t explain it here. Interspersed among campaign banners and Gadsden flags were signs referencing “The Storm”, the great purge QAnon cultists believe will usher in a new age of religious enlightenment. The banner of the Shah’s Persia was carried down the National Mall. A video surfaced of a Delta flight from Salt Lake City to Washington where passengers chanted “traitor” upon recognizing Senator Mitt Romney was onboard, an internet comment section mob manifesting in kinetic space. Rioters interviewed were confused their “revolution” was not met with jubilation from DC security personnel, as they instead faced tear gas and mace. Columnist Charlie Warzel described it as a “crash of brain-poisoned conspiracies against the rocks of human reality”. Mushy brain worms IRL.
Beyond my initial disgust, my feeling was, sadly, one of vindication. On this site and others I’ve argued that online conspiracy theories aren’t just bizarre entertainment: they’re a threat to the physical security of citizens and to the integrity of our institutions. I cannot think of a more poignant example than what happened in Washington on Wednesday.
What is to be done?
The short answer, of course, is I Don’t Know. It seems to me posing that question would be a bit like asking a man whose house is about to be engulfed by a tsunami whether the city should’ve build a seawall. Truth decay is well under way, and divisiveness is here to stay. But I do think a productive thing we can collectively do would be to shift our discourse around social media, free speech, and disinformation to better ground it in the realities we face today.
In the information space, we do not apply our principles equally. Free speech reigns supreme for some ideologies, while others are the targets of armies of overworked content moderators. Certain types of dangerous radicalism, namely Islamist jihadism, are, rightfully, suppressed in order to make the information space a safer place. Social media companies work effectively with governments and law enforcement agencies to remove extremist propaganda from some sources, but drag their heals in combatting others. The online movements that created the chaos on Capitol Hill Wednesday were not taken seriously early enough to prevent us from reaching this unfortunate result.
Wednesday’s violence was coordinated in the open on Facebook, and the escalation and entrenchment of extremist rhetoric in right-wing social media spaces has been obvious to even casual observers for years. Due to Facebook and Twitter’s willful inaction over the last three years, QAnon and related conspiracies have spread like wildfire on social media, as “normies” come into increasing contact with die-hards on these popular platforms.
The mainstream has become exposed to more and more extremist rhetoric. This can be seen in New York Times journalist Kevin Roose’s “Facebook’s Top 10” project, which uses Facebook’s own data to determine the ten posts each day with the most reach. Even a cursory review of the listings reveals a trend. Over the past year, the site has not only become more right-leaning — unsurprising, as its average user age increases — it has also embraced a more conspiracy-laden segment of the right-wing media ecosystem. Whereas the list of popular posts used to be dominated by mainstream news outlets, Fox News’s posts are now regularly outdone by grifters and conspiracy theorists like Dan Bongino, Newsmax, Dinesh D’Souza, and various extremist-adjacent grassroots accounts. In other words, the Overton Window of the online base has shifted under the mainstream conservative media’s feet. This radicalization has increased since the November 2020 election, with viewers shifting from Fox News to more radical sources like OAN and Newsmax. The normies are moving further up the conspiracy supply chain, approaching farm-to-table wackadoodlery.
This spiralling online discourse didn’t happen on encrypted group chats, as many disinformation experts feared would become the new norm. It happened in public, on Facebook groups whose content was perfectly visible to moderators and safety teams. Action was eventually taken against the most extreme of these groups, but only in December 2020, after the damage to the information space had already been done.
Leaving Freedomism Behind
The issue at stake here is not “freedom of speech”, nor any of the other freedoms afforded citizens under the First Amendment. The issue is freedom of virality. The Bill of Rights does not explicitly permit the unfettered projection of information of any kind whatsoever. It does not force social media companies to treat all political advertising as equally good-faith. It does not prevent private companies from enforcing their trust and safety policies however they see fit, as I’m sure libertarians intent on defending the freedom of private enterprise would agree.
There is a definitional distinction between the ability to express an idea and the ability to broadcast it to millions. In the 20th century, the enemy of democratic societies was totalitarian suppression: information wanted to be free. Today, however, most meaningful barriers to accessing and consuming information have been obliterated. Legally-speaking, thought and speech have likely never been freer, and access to knowledge has never been so democratized. Instead of an anachronistic debate about the merits of free speech, we need to come to terms with our new reality.
The battle-lines have been redrawn. The unregulated dissemination of information on viral, engagement-based platforms can in fact be the enemy of free expression and self-government when bad actors game the algorithms to spread violent and hateful ideology. The incentive structures of our information space are spurring on the worst impulses in our society, not keeping us better informed. We are suffocating informed debate, not encouraging it. Something needs to change.
As companies have belatedly begun taking stronger measures, we have to ask ourselves if the discussion we’ve had over the last four years about free speech online was even genuine at all? Did tech moguls mean what they said when waxing poetic about protecting free expression? In light of Wednesday’s reversals, it certainly seems to have been more strategic than philosophical. The Platforms have finally drawn a line in the sand, but somehow they only managed to draw that line in the aftermath of the sack of the US Capitol.
We must abandon our rhetorical “freedomism” and return to a more complex understanding of what “freedom” really means. Preserving liberty and justice for all in our modern society does not mean simply allowing anyone to do anything at any time. As we’ve seen vividly illustrated in Washington, words are not without consequence: they can drive people to take extreme actions. Once an individual has bought into an alternate version of reality, fact checking, flagging, and counter-messaging become ineffective. By that point in the cycle of radicalization, the “marketplace of ideas” is useless, at least certainly as it has been constructed in the age of the viral social internet. Radicalism will always be in demand.
An Eternal Pessimist’s Attempt at a Silver Lining
Wednesday’s events profoundly effected me, both as an American and as a proponent of liberal democracy. When I was an intern in the Library of Congress, I walked through those same halls that were desecrated by a mob. As Americans, we’re raised to remember the men, like my great uncles, sons of working class immigrants, who died fighting tyranny “over there”. It is painful, though not surprising, that the same ugly politics they gave their lives to defeat has a receptive audience at home.
For many in my generation, the last four years have profoundly shaken our confidence in the strength of our political system. However, I believe that’s a good thing. The first step in solving a problem is recognizing there is one. We’re not going to make it through this crisis wearing rose-tinted glasses. If we don’t draw the right conclusions from this difficult period, I worry we will slide further into a place none of us want to contemplate. It’s unclear where we go from here. All that I know is that the vitriol unleashed on Capitol Hill isn’t going anywhere.
Jackson Oliver Webster is a politics and security researcher based in Los Angeles. He is, unfortunately, on Twitter @joliverwebster
