‘Burn down DC,’ violence that erupted at Capitol was incited by pro-Trump mob on social media
Thousands of President Trump supporters and other rioters who stormed the Capitol on Wednesday as Congress prepared to formally declare Joe Biden president-elect fomented the violence and chaos in the days leading up to the protest.
Violent rhetoric including threats against elected officials and police officers flooded all platforms, not just online forums popular with extremists.
There were calls from Boogaloos to “Burn down DC.” One asked on Twitter: “Whos running arms and ammo to dc for when the fun starts.”
On Parler, Proud Boys promoted a video allegedly of a D.C. police officer expressing support for “Antifa” and encouraging violence against Proud Boys. Nationalist Social Club, New England, posted an image from Freedom Plaza claiming the authorities were “in bed with the reds.”
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Touched off by a Twitter post from Trump attorney Lin Wood, close to 2,440 QAnon-related accounts on Twitter used the terms “Pence” and “traitor” in some 2,820 posts between Jan. 5 at 12 a.m. EST and Jan. 6 at 1 p.m. ET, according to the latest figures from Advance Democracy, a research organization that studies disinformation and extremism.
Another conspiracy theory that caught fire in QAnon circles, that President Obama and the Italian government used security contractors and satellites to rig the votes, by altering voting systems using private military contractors and satellites.
Social media posts intensified Wednesday after Trump urged protesters to go to the Capitol Building where they broke through police lines, prompting Vice President Mike Pence to be swept to a secure location and the Senate chamber to be evacuated.
Trump later tweeted asking protesters to leave the Capitol.
“We are seeing significant volumes of rhetoric online,” Daniel J. Jones, president of Advance Democracy, told USA TODAY. “And we’re seeing this rhetoric – fueled by President Trump’s voter fraud claims – across all social media platforms.”
Earlier in the week, QAnon-related accounts posted conspiracy theories warning that Black Lives Matter and “antifa” activists planned to kill Trump supporters, telling protesters to arm themselves for “Independence Day.”
Videos with hundreds of thousands of views on TikTok also encouraged viewers to arm themselves even though guns are prohibited in the areas where protests were to take place. Thousands of posts on Parler talked of a second civil war.
On TheDonald, a message board that formed after the group was banned from Reddit, calls for violence were among the top five comments on more than half of the posts discussing Congress’ certification of electoral votes, while 12% explicitly endorsed violence, according to Advance Democracy.
“The rhetoric and anger behind this promotion of violence is clearly being driven by President Trump’s false claims about U.S. elections being rigged,” Jones said.
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