Capitol Attack Was Months in the Making on Facebook

My bet is when legislation appears it will pass and subtly entrench the incumbents. Win-win!

Clinton and Obama got very wealth after their presidency. Pelosi wealth goes up many fold for becoming speaker of the house. Not only their wealth go up, everyone around them got a lot wealthier too.

Additionally, as of tomorrow the Republicans are irrelevant when it comes to the selecting a party to lobby. Democrats control the house, the senate, and the presidency. Keep their coffers lined and you keep the regulation at bay.

FTFY: in the US

> repeated scandal and failure

At this point what large company hasn’t had breaches or cancelled projects? Hell, is your company doing OK in terms of security? Are they hashing passwords correctly? How large is the security team? My company doesn’t even hash passwords…

At some point you need to stop living in a bubble and recognize that plenty of people, businesses, communities, etc. rely on the app in a positive way.

I can understand that you’re not using it, or think it’s evil, but not everyone shares your opinion.

I understand this is somewhat my privilege speaking here, but I don’t think I could continue working at a company that didn’t do something as basic as hashing passwords (and refused to prioritize fixing that as soon as I pointed it out). It’s a massive ethical, if not legal (IANAL), liability — and a huge breach of users’ trust. It’s 2021, hashing user passwords is astonishingly easy; I can’t imagine any remotely justifiable excuse for something like that.

> User passwords must be stored in a “hashed” form.

These guidelines aren’t legal requirements for every service, but if a data breach occurred, and passwords were leaked, regulators would presumably point to this recommendation, and the ease of complying with it, and take that into consideration when issuing a fine.

[0] https://www.enisa.europa.eu/risk-level-tool/help

‘Breaches’ and ‘cancelled projects’ aren’t the only scandals and failures to come out of Facebook … just the other day on HN front page was an article (from 2018) where Facebook openly admitted that their platform enabled the Myanmar crisis.

No, in lots of places. In Scandinavia Facebook is “for old people”.

>not everyone shares your opinion

I do and everyone I have asked (and maybe informed as part of asking) agrees. The thing is that people are lazy – it is not that they don’t think Facebook is evil – they are just too lazy to do anything about it. Very few informed people sees facebook as Not Evil.

Also, please don’t do FTFY reddit post crap.

More importantly, how big is their whiskey budget?

It’s not the greatest proxy, but how regularly your security team drinks is a not-terrible way to gauge how much trouble your org is going to be in should something happen.

Parler wasn’t “killed” because planning took place there, but because they were openly at least unable if not actually unwilling to take action against a huge backlog of specific problem identified to them; the problem was current and forward, not retrospective.

He said she said, but obviously both sides are incentivized to make themselves look clean

I argued that threats of violence were viable on the platform. She didn’t seem to believe me. I later sent screenshots of violent rhetoric that I found with a quick web search. No response.

There are people who refuse the validity of reality right up until they can’t anymore. Then silence.

* which also means most likely he never actually held the stocks

The Feds are starting to roll up high ranking militia members, so hopefully they learned their lesson this time.

Far-right terror was taken seriously after the OKC bombing. But the far-right terrorist threat had been steadily increasing for three years at that point. Ruby Ridge and the Waco Siege contributed to a surge in far-right militias and other terrorist groups. It took someone driving a truck bomb and killing hundreds of people (in an attempt to spark a race war) to take far-right terrorism seriously.

The same thing happened in the civil rights era. When it looked like things might get serious the .gov caved to the MLK types to prevent the Malcom X types from gaining further sympathy from the masses.

Fast forward to the 1990s and you get the ATF trilogy. Of course the magnitude of the problem was smaller than the KKK so the reaction and adjustments were smaller. On one hand the FBI cracked down on all the extremist groups (cue jokes about how the modern KKK is just a recreation club for FBI agents) but at the same time you’ll notice that when the Bundy Ranch rolled around the feds didn’t just shoot everyone and botch the thing as they would had they let historical precedent be their guide. Same pattern. Crackdown on the extremists while avoiding pissing off the moderate sympathizers.

Likewise hundreds of cities are reconsidering how they allocate law enforcement and social services resources after the events of this summer while also (recently, like past month) starting to crack down on protests to prevent them from getting fiery. Same pattern.

The overarching theme is pretty clear. The government never takes people’s grievances seriously until there’s a “real” threat of extremists getting off the porch and causing serious problems with a large body of sympathizers to back them up.

In light of that it’ll be interesting to see what if any long term changes come out of the whole capitol thing.

I haven’t noticed any gay-marriage terrorists on their porches, and yet here we are. Women-for-equal-pay have not been observed cleaning and oiling their rifles menacingly, and yet the law was mended in their favor. And I don’t think Irish or Jewish terrorism was a problem in the US, but their persecution has ended all the same. You’re only looking at things that became explosive, so quite naturally you will not find things that were resolved peacefully and/or timely. They still exist though, in fact they may be dominant.

It’s a great comment otherwise, I enjoyed the trip down the memory lane. Looking forward to seeing you again.

Both international terrorism (directed at the UK, but sometimes involving direct conflict with the US military) and organized crime-linked terrorism were very big things associated with the Irish in America in the 19th C.

And, on the Jewish side, more recently, Meir Kahane’s Jewish Defense League was a real thing.

Edit: If you think this is untrue, you have an extremely narrow filter bubble.

Look at this case for example. He has left many threatening voicemails to congress members over several years, including while under probation, and the FBI just told him to knock it off without arresting him. So he kept doing it. They only finally arrested him after the terrorist attack on the capitol.

>According to the complaint, Capriotti repeatedly called multiple Congressional offices in Washington, D.C., between October 2019 and January 2020 and left “disturbing, anonymous messages” that often included “profanity along with derogatory remarks concerning the race, religion, political affiliation, or physical appearance” of some members of Congress.

>FBI agents located Capriotti and interviewed him last February, according to the complaint, which states that Capriotti admitted making the calls but insisted he was “just f—ing with them” and “didn’t mean any ill will.”

>The agents advised Capriotti to stop making the calls, but phone records showed he continued to do so between February and November 2020. A series of voicemails Capriotti allegedly made to Congressional offices in November and December were then detailed in the complaint.

https://news.wttw.com/2021/01/12/chicago-heights-man-charged…

https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2021/1/12/22227466/feds-a…

By adopting words like “terrorism” you’re paving the way for an overreaching response from lawmakers and law enforcement — something that will likely end up being used against a cause you might support, like BLM.

Firstly, nobody was terrorized. No, this wasn’t “our 9/11.” I doubt it’ll even be a topic of conversation in a few years, just like we don’t talk about 1983 United States Senate bombing today at all.

I have no doubt a few of the rioters really were planning terrible deeds and they should be prosecuted; the violence and property damage is inexcusable. But most of these people just seem to be caught up in the moment — taking selfies and LARPing around the capitol after hours.

What we need right now is de-escalation.

You think the defining moment of his presidency is something that he only tangentially had a hand in that resulted in a couple arrests and a stolen podium?

That’s a hot take.

It’s just hard for me to believe that in fifty years I’ll be saying “oh boy you remember those dudes that broke into the Capitol?” as I stand in line for my bi-monthly mRNA booster shot that the newly appointed 99th Supreme Court Justice (after the Court has been packed, of course) has ruled is mandatory for all citizens.

The virus is in its own zone as far as memory is concerned. It’s been going on for so long that it overshadows Trump to some extent

This doesn’t seem to be true. Several elected officials have expressed fear they or their family would be harmed by members of the far right, most notably Rep. Pete Meijer (R-MI), who was one of the few house republicans to certify the results of the election:

“I had colleagues who, when it came time to recognize reality and vote to certify Arizona and Pennsylvania in the Electoral College, they knew in their heart of hearts that they should’ve voted to certify, but some had legitimate concerns about the safety of their families,”

He also said “That was what weighed on the colleague in mind’s conscience, and the last thing that that individual said to me, concern about the safety of that individual’s family, if that individual voted to certify the election… That is where the rhetoric has brought us. That is the degree of fear that’s been created.”

In Facebook comments, one rioter wrote:
“Congress needs to hear glass breaking, doors being kicked in.”
“We get our President or we die,” they added. “NOTHING else will achieve this goal.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/11/people-will-try-to-kill-us-s…

https://www.vox.com/2021/1/13/22229052/capitol-hill-riot-int…

Sure seems like terrorism to me.

Now, do I think we need increased surveillance? Absolutely not, it was largely planned in public on Facebook. We just need an FBI that takes this movement’s threats more seriously. Exposing that some far right elements act like terrorists is one way of calling attention to the seriousness of the problem.

Edit: I also think the appeal that they might somehow treat BLM protestors even worse is not worth considering much. I don’t identify with any “side” that uses the threat of physical violence against elected officials to change their vote, even if they were to do it for a “good cause”. I don’t want that to be an available tool for BLM or anyone either.

I think it would be a stretch to call all the rioters terrorists, but I think a lot of them would fit any reasonable definition and they were well-organized, intentional, and numerous. Even if a terrorist attack is unsuccessful or does not kill or injure a large number of people that doesn’t make it not terrorism. And I think there was a real risk that members of Congress could have been kidnapped, injured, or killed if things had gone a little bit differently.

The media is not even handed here.

I’m much more concerned with the media being complicit in downplaying what we both agree is domestic terrorism elsewhere.

I suppose that’s a “what about”, but I fear the current structures of power colluding to form narratives more than angry trumpers.

1. I don’t (personally) agree that the ‘black lives matter’ protests should be considered as ‘terrorism’, because fundamentally they began as a protest against the systematic mistreatment of a certain race/demographic of people. While it can be viewed as political, it’s not quite the same as ‘storming the capital of a country to overturn the result of an election’, which is undeniably a political goal. While some BLM rioters eventually did conduct what could be described as terrorist acts, it fundamentally isn’t the same thing.

2. You’re welcome to disagree on that point, but it’s not what’s being discussed in this thread.

3. Yes, media overreach is an issue, but it’s not the topic of the conversation.

4. I am still sad that people are trying to downplay the issue, and not just because some people don’t want to call it terrorism. People saying ‘oh in the future it won’t even be remembered’ etc etc is also problematic as it’s downplaying the event itself.

Edit: Added point 2

The Pulse nightclub is what real terrorism looks like. And the Christchurch shootings. And 9/11.

The storming of the capitol was not at all similar.

Sure, there were a lot of play acting idiots hanging on and joining in, like that girl who seemed somehow incensed that she got pepper sprayed when “all she’d done” was “shown up for the revolution and trespassed on The Capitol”, but not all of them were just clueless morons.

Some of them had plans and intent that would 100% be called “terrorism” if they were of middle eastern descent, and should 100% be called terrorism even though they’re home-grown American citizens.

It seems pretty obvious to me the purpose was to intimidate elected officials in some misguided attempt to prevent them from completing their constitutional duties. That is literally terrorism.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/terrorism

>Terrorism, the calculated use of violence to create a general climate of fear in a population and thereby to bring about a particular political objective.

> The Pulse nightclub is what real terrorism looks like. And the Christchurch shootings. And 9/11.

> The storming of the capitol was not at all similar.

Interesting. What makes 9/11 a terror attack that doesn’t similarly make the Capitol Insurrection one? Because they both left a similar imprint on the people, and they were both implemented by groups with extremist ideologies and political objectives in mind.

I note that you tossed the reference to the definition of terrorism and focused on grief counseling. Interesting decision.

Calling both kinds of people terrorists feels sort of like calling the passengers of the 9/11 flights terrorists too

> Calling both kinds of people terrorists feels sort of like calling the passengers of the 9/11 flights terrorists too

I’m straining my neck to understand how you equated the litany of protesters who broke into the Capitol building (excluding the terrorists who came equipped with pipe bombs, tactical gear for hostage-taking, and who planned the insurrection for months) with innocent bystanders on doomed flights on 9/11.

The most dangerous thing you can do now is to think this is behind you and from here on in everything is normal. It isn’t and it probably won’t be for some time. If you manage the next two transfers of power at the end of election cycles without further mishap I’d say that you can say democracy is intact. Until then all bets are off.

Edit: I wished I could locate the article, so far no luck.

edit2: finally found it in my history, this article was from 11 November 2020, and very prescient:

https://indica.medium.com/i-lived-through-a-coup-america-is-…

The latest major failed coup that I can remember would be the 2016 Turkish coup d’état attempt, and the effect it had on the country is well known. The general consensus internationally seems to be that the efforts by their government to stamp out their “terrorists” has been a bit of an overreaction, even if literal tanks was involved. The censorship machine in particular has been quite overreactive.

One can really hope that the US democracy manage a more appropriate reaction that is more proportional to the threat.

> And yet, here we are, democracy intact.

You keep cutting off quotes without including the relevant details. You need to stop doing that. The original quote:

> What they can’t survive is groups of thugs that don’t like the result of an election, and go off to physically prevent its results from being honored. That is unprecedented.

The last part of that sentence you cropped (emphasized by me) didn’t come to pass because it was interrupted by Capitol contingency plans and Shelter In Place protocols, among other things. It very well could’ve been successful; we’re lucky to not know that outcome.

When that belief is shattered, and people no longer believe in a peaceful transfer of power, you get violent transfer of power.

I think it’s far too early to make such a claim. Wait till 2022, or 2024, or 2028. This genie is not going back in the bottle without putting up a fight – not while its being egged on by opportunistic mainstream politicians.

People are fools to think this is all just suddenly over now that Trump is gone and big-tech de-platformed one tiny social media platform.

Unlike the Senate bombing, the Capitol attack was the coda on four years of the American right wing and Republican Party sliding into fanatical racism-fueled conspiracy theory on behalf of, and encouraged by, the most hated President in American history losing his damn mind about not winning a second term.

I mean, Trump was already going down in history based on his personality, Twitter trolling and all around incompetence even before he purposely undermined and politicized America’s COVID response, creating the atmosphere of fear and paranoia that led to armed marches in the streets. And then came the “stop the steal” movement, which had already committed violence prior to an armed insurrection against the government itself.

People will definitely still be talking about this in a few years. People will be writing theses on this. You could argue this isn’t “our” 9/11, but only for the relative lack of violence. In terms of the repercussions on America’s cultural, social and political landscape, it is, and it isn’t leaving the cultural consciousness for a long time.

Compare that with the tiny Capitol Police force guarding the Capitol building while one of the most important state functions was in progress, with much of the executive branch succession and the legislative branch in attendance. National Guard troops were denied both in advance and for a while during the ensuing riot, citing concerns about “the optics.”

Any meaningful discussion of protest response and overreach, potential or actual, has to account for that disparity.

As you said, some rioters were “planning terrible deeds,” which increasingly clearly means “kidnapping or executing congresspeople and the VP for not keeping DJT in power.” This raises the issue to the level of sedition (organized incitement to rebellion) and insurrection (actual acts of violence against the state or its officers).

Maybe “terrorism” doesn’t broadly apply here, and it’s better to refer to the capitol invaders as “insurrectionists.” Trump, the other government supporters of the protest, and any private backers should be labeled as “seditionists.” I am less likely to push for a “terrorism” label if I can be confident that the other two labels will be applied and prosecuted as such.

Even if it was misplaced, isn’t that a better opening mindset?

Then when things began to escalate, calls for National Guard assistance were denied by the Pentagon for at least a full hour. In a rapidly-evolving situation, especially when the Capitol building has been breached and it takes time to summon the troops since they weren’t on standby, that is an eternity.

In my city, BLM demonstrators – or at least people purporting to be part of BLM – declared several city blocks an autonomous zone. The zone’s security forces subsequent killed several people (among them, ironically, an unarmed black 16 year old). It took the city 3 weeks to clear out this zone, and it was done without lethal force.

By comparison, the people occupying the Capitol were removed in a matter of hours including employing lethal force.

The Capitol protests were met with more leniency than some BLM demonstrations, but less than others.

That’s lethal force in self-defense, not lethal force to clear out the protest.

There seem to be a lot of people who are absolutely certain that the security forces were responsible for this.

The police aren’t among their number, however, since they haven’t detained, arrested or charged anyone.

There was also another killing in the zone that was, iirc, erroneously blamed on the security forces.

“Cliven Bundy and sons cleared in case of 2014 armed standoff, a major defeat for the federal government that critics fear will empower far-right militia groups“

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/08/bundy-family…

> The judge declared a mistrial in December and ruled on Monday that prosecutors could not retry the case, arguing that the US attorney’s office had willfully withheld evidence and engaged in misconduct.

I might be cynical, but I think that will work just about as well as the first impeachment.

The FBI, hardly a bastion of left-wingers, has been warning for decades that white supremacists have been attempting to infiltrate police and the military.

When polled 25% of active-duty military personnel say they know at least one.

So indeed. The real question is why was there seemingly no preparation to handle it.

Clearly some of the Establishment wanted it to succeed.

Or massively & publicly fail… if we’re trading conspiracy theories.

January 6 was either luck and foolery or clever planning.

A year ago I would have said dumb luck but the weekend before super Tuesday last year with the centrists clearing the lane for Biden all within 36 hours convinced me there’s capable skilled political actors who, I guess, just don’t act frequently.

January 6 was perhaps the least harmful version of the storm possible. The people there, they are the kinds of people that follow crazy conspiracies and do mass shootings, tens thousands of them. They’ve been antagonized and fueled this antigovernment narrative, some of them for almost 30 years by the shock jock grifters.

They got their storm, the pitchfork moment and relatively little violence happened, it lasted just an afternoon, then they left, not returning the next day and now people are being arrested in a way that doesn’t martyr them as revolutionaries or put them into any kind of overarching constructive narrative.

They weren’t lined up against the wall and taken care of like revolutionaries but instead individually arrested like common criminals. There was no clear “deep state” repression or large arrests to stoke the conspiracies of FEMA prison camps etc.

The storm happened. It was a dud.
Afterwards the conspiracy social media accounts were denouncing the Republican party. Almost like the Republicans were able to shake off this toxic part of their coalition in the exchange.

This is an extremely favorable outcome for the establishment. They even got to shut down a bunch of the biggest troublemakers in the process. So really I don’t know what to think. Brilliant execution or dumb luck, maybe a bit of both…

It was incredible to see so few Capitol police guarding the capitol. Further, the fact that they didn’t employ things like tear gas sooner was incredible. They just sort of let the rioters through the weak barriers they setup.

Security HAD to have known this was coming. This wasn’t some secret plot. I knew this was coming just because I like to keep tabs on what the trump supporters are saying. It was all over the reddit knockoff (win).

(and besides, there were a good number of people with guns at the protest. And some others brought pipe bombs. Thankfully neither ended up being a factor but no one would have known that at the time)

And again: if you have the support of the police (and potentially also the armed forces) it’s all pretty moot anyway.

Because despite their public rhetoric and willingness to carry guns when they don’t expect law enforcement opposition, they realized that their only chance of success at the Capitol was to not be treated by law enforcement the way that law enforcement (including the Secret Service) would treat a visibly-armed mob surrounding the Capitol during proceedings (which include Secret Service protectees).

“Realized that the likely law enforcement stance likely at the Capitol would make visibly carrying a firearm increase their personal risk rather than their effectiveness” is probably more accurate.

Surely you are not conflating quotes from peaceful demonstrators against (alleged) election fraud, with militants trying to violently overthrow the government?

Part of the answer that I am surprised you haven’t been given yet is that there is an ongoing infiltration of the police forces in this country by far right wing activists. I mean, Exhibit A is the two off-duty cops from (I think) one of the Carolinas that were present in the actual riot. Here is a think piece [0] that has links to sources. I would not be surprised at all to learn that there were people in the Capitol Police itself who were sympathizers.

[0] https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/hidd…

Like the song says: “Some of those who join forces, are the same who burn crosses.”

The hypocrisy from both sides is astonishing and the reason why cops can kill whoever they feel like: half the country will cheer them on because that {anarchist,nazi} deserved it. I find it sickening that I share a citizenship with blood thirsty savages with no concept of empathy.

– Overcorrection: law enforcement had come under fire for using excessive force against protests and they erred on the other side.

– Conspiracy: the security state is firmly under the control of the pro-Trump faction, who (incorrectly) thought they could make Trump president for life once the Q Shaman took the Senate.

– Conspiracy: the security state is firmly under the control of the anti-Trump faction, who (correctly) thought that letting the protest go too far would be politically devastating for their enemies, and would provide the hook for passing new security laws.

– Incompetence: America can’t protect its capitol for the same reason it can’t distribute a vaccine, build railways or put a man on the moon.

The discussion here has focused on the shutdown of Parler, both because the demographic leans right and because tech people feel more comfortable talking about data access and civil liberties than about political violence.

In the rest of society, I assure you, the laser focus of discussion is absolutely about the act itself, and the response to it, and questions about the likelihood of it happening again. The stuff about Parler is a side show for the most part.

The constitutionality of “future-effective” pardons is in question. There’s also the question of if those pardons will even be issued (does he care enough).

[Can you fine folks in California vote out Feinstein? She’s long past her best-used-by date]

Also – Tim Pool isn’t considered “reasonably neutral” by any stretch of the imagination. He is a very unnuanced commentator, his bias is hard to ignore, he tends to cherry pick data and often misrepresents opposite views, aside from that he is very inconsistent. If you do recommend people should check sources, I’m with you but Pool really isn’t a particularly reliable one for factual accuracy, summaries or analysis.

There is plenty of evidence that the GREAT LEADER tried to overturn elections. If the Congress fails to impeach him it would imply the Congress is not a strong and relevant institution anymore and what the GREAT LEADER failed at someone else would succeed in future. Also, no point blaming FBI here as they were merely pen pushers, their bosses and Congress from which derive legitimacy are far more incompetent and responsible for this mess.

Cato Institute (Libertarian/Conservative think tank) analyst David Bier has a timeline here. The Great Leader Supreme had called for this rally in early December and had since used violent language asking folks to move to DC on December 6th.

https://twitter.com/David_J_Bier/status/1351552702032056328?…

Here are some quotable quotes.

> 12/19: Trump announces the Jan. 6th event by tweeting, “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” Immediately, insurrectionists begin to discuss the “Wild Protest.” Just 2 days later, this UK political analyst predicts the violence

> On Dec. 29, the FBI sends out a nationwide bulletin warning legislatures about attacks

> 1/1: Trump tweets the time of his protest. Then he retweets “The calvary is coming” on Jan. 6!” Sounds like a war? About this time, the FBI begins visiting right wing extremists to tell them not to go–does the FBI tell the president?

>1/5: Trump tweets at various law enforcement, intelligence, and military agencies that he supposedly oversees about the threat from “Antifa.” At the same time, a VA FBI Office warns of a “war” at the Capitol from the far right starting the next day.

> 1/6, 12:00-12:17pm: Trump begins his speech. At 12:17, he says that he will march with the rioters to the Capitol to demand the election be overturned.

> “After this, we’re going to walk down and I’ll be there with you. We’re going to walk down. We’re going to walk down any one you want, but I think right here. We’re going walk down to the Capitol” – Donald J. Trump – Jan 6 2021

> “We are going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue and we’re going to the Capitol and we’re going to try and give weak Republicans the pride and boldness that they need to take back our country… So let’s walk down Pennsylvania Ave” https://youtu.be/ipTSkxiToDE

Most terrorists are idiots because most people who are not idiots are not terrorists.

Aside from 9/11 none of them have operated successfully in the US and your domestic terrorism has mainly been perpetrated by individuals or very small one off groups of just 2 or 3.

Because the stupid ones get killed/thrown into jail

It’s not fooling anyone but the brain dead and comatose.

P.S.: I’m not american and never have been to USA.

(non-US person here)

I hate that I even have to say this, because it seems childishly unnecessary, but I am not a fan of Trump. But I feel there is enough to condemn him for without grasping for straws.

The whole point of the military doing anything short of all out war is to scare an “enemy” into compliance through threat of violence. So it’s not classified as terrorism for the same reason as lethal action by police is not murder. The blessing of the state changes its definition.

Note the statistics here [0] – of course the numbers are very fuzzy but at the worst case scenario it’s 1:2.5 civilians: military targets. So for every 2.5 military targets, 1 civilian. That fits the bill for extreme and indiscriminate.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_strikes_in_Pakistan

If you actively object the biggest military in the world, there is no safe place on this planet. A country that effectively uses black op sites to do torture on suspects that would be illegal back home, a country that actively uses a prison to indefinitely detain (and torture) suspects without any legal process (and so on and on… really, there are whole books about this), has absolutely 0 issues with bombing some enemy general. It can be even in the centre of Brusel for all they care, if the benefits outweigh the cons. If they kill 50 kids along, all they do is try to minimize media damage. Do you see many americans shedding tears over this? From outside its pretty hard to spot any, and anybody who cares knows how things are.

Let’s not pretend wars are something nice, fair and some gentlemanly approach is applied. Almost anything that works will be used.

If we get a more transparent and verifiable election system in light of (or perhaps in spite of) the assault on capitol hill, then is it somehow justified? I certainly don’t think so.

I suppose not, seeing as one is a fantasy and the other clearly had the police paying attention to their plans.
Besides, neither has attempted a coup to overturn an election so it’s not really the same is it?

This is the problem. You asked if people really don’t believe that antifa is real. Obviously it is real in some sense since we are talking about something called antifa, but we have no idea if you are thinking of the bogeyman organization that doesn’t exist, and I am thinking of a philosophy of counterprotest.

When people talk about ‘getting rid of antifa’ there’s a reason that so many people on the left laugh. It’s because there is a false conception on the right that it is some sort of unified organization like the ACLU or NRA where you can literally be a card carrying member. People on the left understand that there is no such thing, it is just an ill-defined idea.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that if white supremacists performed those same actions, it would be described as a violent terroristic insurrection.

What exactly is so sacrosanct about elections that disputing them is an insurrection, but not storming Senate chambers to stop a Supreme Court confirmation, trying to storm the WH, or literally declaring an autonomous zone not subject to the US government?

It’s hard for me to understand how this is not simply nit picking some insubstantial detail and using it to put the things we like on one side and the things we don’t like on another. Never mind that the election nor the integrity thereof were ever remotely threatened by these riots.

You’ll see in the top ten list several listings in April 1968, when Martin Luther King was assassinated. Counting these (and the many, many other cities they took place in in 1968) separately, while lumping together “protests that took place in 140 U.S. cities this spring”, is fairly hard to justify.

You should also consider what else your preferred news sources may have blown out by a similarly inaccurate 10-20x amount about the BLM protests.

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.

All of these topics you’ve mentioned are and always have been far away from trending (‘amplified’, ‘normalized’) pages. You can’t go anywhere on these sites and see these topics without searching for them, and when you do the hashtags are either immediately taken over by the rest of the users on the site or taken off of trending deliberately by administrators, often both. Can you provide one example of these topics consistently being ‘amplified’ or ‘normalized’ by one of the major tech platforms? I’m talking public content, not private groups. Posts that are ‘amplified’, not just present. You can find posts from anyone about anything online, so I don’t really see what separates these private facebook groups from something like a mailing list. It doesn’t seem “normalized” at all.

Facebook exercises editorial control (moderation) of what user-provided content is published on its site. Therefore if something is there, it’s because their moderation system allowed it to be there. I don’t use Facebook myself so I can’t provide a first-hand example, but it’s increasingly being reported that this content spreads virally through these platforms’ recommendation rabbit-holes and through promotion by end users.

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.

But those same folks will happily excuse the whole BLM/Antifa rioting during 2020 where billions of dollars in property damage was caused and dozens of people died.

All that said, if we can make our way past the obvious consequences of limiting speech we might get to a more interesting place. In particular I’m more interested in how social media moderation might change our opinions and laws about speech itself. Does everyone’s speech deserve to be treated the same way by the algorithms that decide what gets traction and what doesn’t? Should the algorithms or platforms themselves be restricted in their “speech” in some way? How do we square our desire to allow corporations to develop algorithms to increase commerce when those same algorithms also necessarily foment rage and violence?

I don’t think it’s worth arguing whether free speech is worth protecting (it is, despite the evils you also have to protect) but I do think it’s worth considering how we think about what constitutes speech when commerce, social media platforms, and algorithms come into play.

It wasn’t. Not since the 00s and at that point social media was small enough that rooting for the underdog was rooting for themselves.

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.“

On the other we have hooligans organized for the express purpose of overturning the results of a democratic election.

In the case of BLM, the crimes don’t reflect on the movement’s overall purpose. Nobody expects property damage to be a vehicle for police reform — it’s an argument for more police presence, if anything. In the case of the capitol riots, not only are the crimes worse (storming the capitol >> property damage), but the criminal acts absolutely do reflect on the movement’s agenda. Intimidating congress is a plausible vehicle for obtaining the votes they needed that day to overturn the election. Trump’s pre-riot speech emphasized that this was the goal. These factors increase the culpability of platforms and leadership in the capitol riots as compared to BLM.

I, for one, believe that taking over a city block and declaring it an autonomous zone is significantly less concerning than attempting to stop the presidential election — arguably the single most important piece of our democracy — from happening, calling for the death of the vice president while building gallows, and potentially looking for other politicians to kill.

Yeah, CHAZ was wrong and stupid. Yeah, the people who did it should get some kind of punishment. So should the people who destroyed private property during the riots, that’s not cool.

But it seems pretty clear to me that the storming of the capital is so much worse than that as it is a clear attempt to undermine our democracy. I believe the response should reflect that.

Having a convicted terrorist as a director of their beloved BLM movement means nothing. Lofty ideals matter.

Invading a city block means nothing. Lofty ideals matter.

If you don’t think the people who did CHOP and Capitol are equally dangerous to society, you’re wilfully turning a blind eye.

Except it hasn’t been. You just don’t want to listen to what people are actually saying because it’s easier to argue against a strawman.

FWIW lots of people on the left do the same thing. So I guess you’re in good company?

It’s okay to criticize both things here. CHOP/CHAZ was clearly wrong, as is throwing a molotov at a police officer. No question about that. The capitol was wrong as well.

Look, I’ll agree that everyone involved with both CHAZ and the Capitol Riots needs to go to jail. That includes Donald Trump, though. He was the one trying an end-run around the US electoral process in order to hold on to power for four more years.

Context matters. One group had specific goals, none of which involved killing. The other group specifically was calling out to kill someone.

Yet hundreds of cities are in the process of reevaluating how they allocate police and social service resources.

In light of that it’ll be interesting to see what comes out of the capital mess.

Blessing? The blessing was for peaceful protests, the rioters were universally condemned.

>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.”

And served 15 years in prison for it with a 58 YEAR sentence. Clinton faced plenty of criticism for the pardon too. That being said, are you suggesting someone who has served their time should… permanently be ostracized by society? Prison is meant to punish not reform?

If you’re suggesting she’s still supporting violence, provide the evidence. Her book seems to indicate she has a different world view after spending time in prison. Literally the outcome we SHOULD want from people being arrested and imprisoned.

I know many people who defended the BLM rioters on social media. The actual rioters – not just the protesters.

slightly off-topic but I don’t think a 58-year sentence will reform anyone more than a 10-year sentence would. The entire American prison system is built around punishing our prisoners.

I really think the entire prison system needs to be rethought from the ground up though. It doesn’t make sense that excons carry this weight with them throughout their life, failing background checks. If someone’s been released from prison, they should be done with their punishment. Period.

– The BLM movement, while the source of many large large scale protests (several of which turned into riots and outstayed their welcome) never, at any point, even pretended to stage a coup or murder a member of the Capitol Police.

and to your 2nd point, I don’t think it was ppl saying ACAB that raised the temperature and hatred towards cops. It was the cops killing innocent black people.

Just because one event raises the temperature doesn’t mean another event also doesn’t. Saying ACAB and defund the police seems like it would also raise the temperature.

So, the original idea there is police in the United States are killing black people for stupid reasons, which is true. There are no statistics to worry about for that one and there don’t need to be: just look at a handful of publicized cases and be angry.

But of course, people do like statistics. You can’t be angry without statistics. (Truly, you shouldn’t. It’s unhealthy). Also, that framework makes a terrible export. (Which is unfortunate because Canada loves importing protests from the States instead of making its own).

So, various other progressive movements globbed on to the name, as they do, but fortunately it’s a more visceral thing than, say, Occupy Wall Street, so they are at least mostly on topic. I think the real problem, which is the source of most of the recent anger (see the equally badly named and easily co-opted slogan “Defund the police”), is that police are killing a lot of people for stupid reasons.

It is still important to emphasize that black lives matter, because they do, and it’s infuriating that that makes people uncomfortable. But the root cause is the United States has an unreasonable approach to policing in general, which creates as many problems as it solves. And I think if you talk to most BLM supporters, they aren’t going to tell you about racial sensitivity training or hiring more black cops: they’re going to tell you how the police in a developed country shouldn’t act as if they’re expecting a war.

Is it though? Seems to me you’re advocating feelings matter more than facts. I believe it would be more accurate to say “police in the United States are killing people for stupid reasons, which is true.” while keeping in mind that those incidents are the exception, not the norm. The police shot 28 unarmed people in 2019. On a population of 320 million.

>This paper explores racial differences in police use of force. On non-lethal uses of force, blacks and Hispanics are more than fifty percent more likely to experience some form of force in interactions with police. Adding controls that account for important context and civilian behavior reduces, but cannot fully explain, these disparities. On the most extreme use of force – officer-involved shootings – we find no racial differences in either the raw data or when contextual factors are taken into account.

https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/fryer/files/empirical_anal…

>We create a comprehensive database of officers involved in fatal shootings during 2015 and predict victim race from civilian, officer, and county characteristics. We find no evidence of anti-Black or anti-Hispanic disparities across shootings, and White officers are not more likely to shoot minority civilians than non-White officers. Instead, race-specific crime strongly predicts civilian race. This suggests that increasing diversity among officers by itself is unlikely to reduce racial disparity in police shootings.

https://archive.is/Xppla

>In 2019 police officers fatally shot 1,004 people, most of whom were armed or otherwise dangerous. African-Americans were about a quarter of those killed by cops last year (235), a ratio that has remained stable since 2015. That share of black victims is less than what the black crime rate would predict, since police shootings are a function of how often officers encounter armed and violent suspects. In 2018, the latest year for which such data have been published, African-Americans made up 53% of known homicide offenders in the U.S. and commit about 60% of robberies, though they are 13% of the population.
The police fatally shot nine unarmed blacks and 19 unarmed whites in 2019, according to a Washington Post database, down from 38 and 32, respectively, in 2015. The Post defines “unarmed” broadly to include such cases as a suspect in Newark, N.J., who had a loaded handgun in his car during a police chase. In 2018 there were 7,407 black homicide victims. Assuming a comparable number of victims last year, those nine unarmed black victims of police shootings represent 0.1% of all African-Americans killed in 2019. By contrast, a police officer is 18½ times more likely to be killed by a black male than an unarmed black male is to be killed by a police officer.

https://archive.is/MIoYJ

>This paper explores racial differences in police use of force. On non-lethal uses of force, blacks and Hispanics are more than fifty percent more likely to experience some form of force in interactions with police. Adding controls that account for important context and civilian behavior reduces, but cannot fully explain, these disparities.

Protests are not necessarily “newsworthy”; however, that search interest would track media stirring up news before elections seems likely.

Further, (and I say this as a Minneapolitan) the significant protests of this summer were very clearly and obviously precipitated by real world events, not astroturfed protest crowds.

So, Trump was behind it, so he could run on a law and order platform? Because he certainly did take advantage of it.

I’m afraid the boring truth was that ordinary people got angry during a time of high unemployment, with protests and rioting being a predictable result. It’s not as though large protests over police shootings are new.

Obviously every “unjustified” death, especially deaths by the police (who are trained and held to higher expectations given their position) is a tragedy. The riots and protests led to far more deaths, far more injuries, and far more damage (including causing the second wave as cases were decreasing) than seems at all justified even considering these tragic police shootings.

In other words, while police brutality is a genuine problem, the response was completely disproportionate, misinformed, and morally wrong.

> Rosenberg was sentenced to 58 years’ imprisonment on the weapons and explosives charges. She spent 16 years in prison, during which she became a poet, author, and AIDS activist. Her sentence was commuted to time served by President Bill Clinton on January 20, 2001,[5] his final day in office.[6][7]

She was charged, served some of her time (16 years of 58 years is 27.586%), and then a president pardoned her.

The people who attacked the Capitol were fighting to end democracy and keep an unelected would-be dictator in power.

Do you see the difference?

I don’t think it invalidates all of the points of the platform of BLM, but it does make me question the sanity and legitimacy of the organization’s leadership.

By far the scariest facet of the modern moment to me is all the people sneering at Trumpists detachment from reality while happily wallowing in their own post-truth bubble. The average person has always been horribly un- and misinformed, but the shift in the last couple of years in my white-collar, coastal social group legitimately terrifies me.

[1] Though I’m well-aware that getting attention and support is probably the most important part of driving social change, and they’ve obviously done very well there.

BLM 2015 didn’t quite meet this tradeoff, and was in some cases explicitly against race-blind solutions to police violence and in favor of pseudoscience like IATs (at which point their detachment from reality points them in the opposite direction from managing to do good). BLM 2020 is pretty different in character, and while it still has its stupidities, I reckon that it’s a decent enough direction that it may lead to some positive change.

I don’t think it’s about individually high-quality sources as much as it is about how you take in information. Don’t consider yourself to understand an issue until you’ve heard a compelling argument on both sides, or have thoroughly convinced yourself that you’ve adequately searched through diverse enough fora. Don’t read anything, from Alex Jones’s Facebook page to the frontpage of the NYT, without spot-checking sources, reading studies, etc. There’s no filter that ensures that journalists are the best humanity has to offer: just like all humans, plenty of them are incompetent or dishonest, and beyond that groupthink exists in cultures that get as insular and self-aggrandizing as journalism’s. Correctly combine a variety of low-quality signals and you can get a really high-quality signal.

That being said, some general recommendations for individual sources are (in ascending order of obscurity) The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, and Marginal Revolution (economist Tyler Cowen’s blog). I find they do a better job than most of:

1) representing different opinions intellectually honestly

2) being thorough in their reasoning and analysis

and/or

3) being fairly high-quality

The point I’m trying to make with this winding comment is that you can still consume an unhealthy amount of biased media without delving into the levels of Qanon- expand your horizons and try other sources!

I personally even make it a point to read FOX and r/conservative once in a while through a critical lens to see what exactly the right is consuming.

This is incendiary and false.

What happens when you take over multiple city blocks for a few weeks and don’t allow any government agencies to do their jobs? That should also have reprecussions…but it didn’t.

Contrasting this to the reaction to capitol hill does not bode well to me.

If you don’t see a categorical difference between the two events, I’d recommend checking your biases.

Which is why our intelligence and security infrastructure are moving heaven and earth right now to locate and intercept the many foreign agents who attacked the capitol alongside their american collaborators. With luck, they will be intercepted before anything can happen that might be deleterious to the safety of all these lives we’re all claiming are we care about so deeply.

It’s good to see so many loyal and patriotic americans keeping eyes forward in this common endeavor. And not being sidetracked by matters like, say, street crime, that can be reliably left to the capable handling of municipal authorities.

And there was a great deal of push back against BLM related protests. Near me in Oakland, California the discount grocery store that serves a mostly black and largely poor neighborhood was ransacked and this caused a huge uproar and major social upheaval. There was considerable resistance against the rioting at that time.

But all we heard from the right was a wretched flow of lies. Democrats do nothing to stop violence they said, even when police were hurting from attempts to bring peace. And then the same lovers of political theater cheered on an attack on the capitol.

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.

I’m not justifying any particular actions that anyone has taken in specific, just objecting to the categorization that it is always bad. (For example, someone suffering from domestic violence might strike back in an effort to escape.)

Ariel Atkins – Chicago BLM leader:

“That is reparations,” Ariel Atkins, an organizer, told NBC Chicago. “Anything they wanted to take, they can take it”

She said that about a riot in which 13 police officers were injured, and at least one rioter fired at police.

This is just one example of many where BLM leaders justified (or glorified) violence.

peaceful:

1. free from disturbance; tranquil.

2. not involving war or violence.

Alas our moral non cognizance in a post modern perspective.

edit: to the below, really, no. There’s no hyperbole. If your group features nazis, and your group is not making every effort to expel associations with said nazis, your group is, at best, nazi adjacent. Nazis are the hyperbolic euphemism of peak historical immorality. It is preposterous that anyone feels they’re making a good faith argument throwing whatabout comparisons when the starting point is nazis.

Where are all these “nazis” you say that word a lot. “My group” I didnt know I was in a group. You certainly seem to assume a lot and form knee jerk conclusions. Actually proving my point quite well.

The fact that this is something you’re in a state of active denial about is a ‘you’ problem, not a ‘me’ problem.

Remember, the OG antifa were on the beaches at Normandy.

70 million people cast a vote based on political affiliations. And their side lost, and they accepted that. The commonality with the seditionists ends there.

Did they, now?

“A CNN poll, released on Sunday and conducted by SSRS between January 9 and 14, shows that 75 percent of Republicans do not think that Biden won the election legitimately, compared to 1 percent of Democrats and 36 percent of independents.”[0]

[0] https://www.newsweek.com/republicans-joe-biden-won-election-…

> Trump, Aug. 14, 2017: As I said on Saturday, we condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence. It has no place in America. And as I have said many times before: No matter the color of our skin… we must love each other, show affection for each other, and unite together in condemnation of hatred, bigotry, and violence… Racism is evil. And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/02/trump-has-condemned-white-…

Donald Trump has many qualities worth criticizing. You should do some basic research to make sure you’re repeating real ones and not just nonsense from an echo chamber.

From the summer:
https://www.snopes.com/ap/2020/06/28/trump-tweets-video-with…

And this:
https://www.npr.org/2020/06/18/880377872/facebook-removes-tr…

And then stuff like this:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-condemn-white-suprem…

When asked to condemn “white supremacists and right-wing militia groups,” Trump verbally articulated a willingness to do so (“Sure, I’m willing to do that”), but also prevaricated, delayed, and bristled at the request, for example asking “Who do you want me to condemn?” when the terms of the request had already been made clear, and saying “Give me a name, go ahead.” He also swiftly shifted focus from white supremacists (the subject of the moderator’s question to him) to a condemnation of “the left wing.”

While it can be argued that Trump did not unequivocally refuse to condemn white supremacists, he undoubtedly demonstrated a reluctance to do so, one that will be very worrying to many voters. When Trump ultimately got around to issuing his version of the condemnation requested by Wallace and Biden, it was shrouded in ambiguity (“Proud Boys? Stand back and stand by”) and followed by another rapid shift in focus to “antifa and the Left.” Whatever Trump did say, he did not condemn white supremacists.

Unfortunately, because of the pandemic I’ve probably watched, read, and listened to more Trump than his supporters. The only echo chamber I’m in is his own material. His hesitancy around the white supremacist topic has always been alarming.

“Things are justified because I support them or unjustified because I don’t support them”.

This is how children and narcissists think. Reality is that a lot of arguments are really this with a layer or two of post-hoc justification though.

I can’t tell if this post was meant as a joke, but if it wasn’t it’s either impressively self-aware or completely and utterly lacking self-awareness.

Computing has long been an interplay of curious, light-hearted hacker types and business/military types. e.g. Woz/Yannes/Stoll/Stallman and Jobs/DARPA/Musk/Thiel.

I don’t think the values of skill, sacrifice, daring, and greed (sorry if that offends anyone) that roughly underlie HN are effective filters to remove Trump values. In fact, they move the needle toward the business/military side. HN appreciates the fun hacks, but, by design, amplifies the business side.

Susan Rosenberg has paid for her crimes and no longer uses terrorism to further the cause. Pointing to her case is a sever form of whataboutism, and is never done in good faith.

Not sure how she has paid for her crimes, and why her case of known crimes and casualties should not be pointed?

All political violence should be treated equally.

I also think that all races/genders/etc should be treated equally but even that has become taboo in progressive circles. Which is probably using the same sort of mental gymnastics that justifies some violence but not vilifies others.

Problem is, it’s always been taboo in conservative circles as well. That is the great problem of our day. All these political ideologues espouse beliefs contrary to the good of large numbers of people in our society. They give speeches about how it’s not “us” but the other side who are the bad guys, but then they all send their pet terrorists out to riot, loot, and in the case of the capitol attackers gather intel to hand over to our nation’s adversaries.

These political extremists are simply bad people all the way around. No matter what way you look at it.

It’s obvious they did not all commit crimes, but they somewhat tacitly encouraged what brought it about. I generally don’t feel the same way about BLM activists. There were situations in BLM events where the boundary was overstepped, and inexcusable mob behavior took over. Perhaps I give a big pass because I am sympathetic to the overall aims of the movement, and for the “Stop the Steal” event I see a lot of malice in the lies that caused people to deny (not just question) the outcome of the election.

Yet, you paint all of them with the same brush…

Nice way to detract from the point that people are directing violence towards politicians.

But yes a Target got looted and some fires were set because people are fucking angry about the institutional violence directed towards their communities.

Clearly the same thing, yeah?

We’re talking about terrorism here, and your first reaction is: “But what about BLM?!?” They have nothing to do with each other. Your assumption is that people didn’t condemn the violence this summer. They did. You just choose to ignore it so you can keep your political nonsense.

Get a grip.

This sentence fragment appears deliberately vague and it assumes the conclusion. Compare, for example, “The Capitol Attack” vs “Right Wing Violence in America”. One references a specific event with specific actors, the other is a vague non-specific description of a phenomena that may or may not exist.

I’d encourage you to be more specific — which instances of fires and looting do you feel were not adequately described as attacks? Who is failing to describe them, again, specifically.

Right now, this does not read like you are interested in discussing this in good faith.

-Armed protestors took over government buildings and city blocks

-Promoted/condoned/excused by government officials

-Lots of violence and murder

And keep in mind that the SPD did considerably more violence to a larger group over that time.

Yes, but your framing isn’t genuine. Some protestors did wander into an abandoned building. I’m not sure whether any of them were armed. That’s a far cry from “Armed protestors took over a government building.”

> Raz the Warlord of CHAZ giving out assault rifles:

Again, your framing is clearly flamebait. I obviously don’t deny that Raz was there, and that there appears to be a video of him giving a long gun to someone. (Singular.)

But calling Raz “the Warlord of CHAZ” is needlessly biased and inflammatory. Just say Raz Simone, or if you feel you need to clarify, add some factual clarification.

> How many people were shot within the protest zone by occupants of CHAZ versus police over that time?

Again, your framing lacks nuance.

The first shooting in the protests was by someone driving into a crowd who claimed to have a brother who worked in the east precinct.

The second shooting does not have a clear connection to the protest occupants. The Police chose not to help the shooting victim (and the reason for the shooting is unknown). This may have been protest related violence. It may have been non-protest related violence. It’s unclear if the victim would have survived if the Police had made any effort.

The third shooting (which occurred outside of the zone) appears to be racially motivated, and according to the victim was allegedly at the hands of a white supremacist. It’s unclear if this is related to the second shooting.

The fourth and fifth shooting (which occurred outside of the zone) have no details beyond someone getting shot in the arm.

The sixth and seventh shootings were of two teens who had reportedly driven an SUV through the crowds overnight, including through the park. Details are hazy, and it’s not clear whether this was an act of self defense or something else.

So, on my counting there were seven shootings:

2 appear to be against protestors or racially motivated.

3 have no clear details that link them to the protest, and 2 of which did not take place in the zone

2 are allegedly in self defense, though the veracity of those claims is TBD.

>The first shooting in the protests was by someone driving into a crowd who claimed to have a brother who worked in the east precinct.

Wrong. The first shooting came after an argument between leftists escalated. No vehicle involved.

>The second shooting does not have a clear connection to the protest occupants. The Police chose not to help the shooting victim (and the reason for the shooting is unknown).

Wrong again, it is directly linked because it happened when the protest occupants were marching back from a protest around city hall. Protestors blocked the police and firefighters from entering the area, and once the police made headway, the victim was already moved.

>The third shooting (which occurred outside of the zone) appears to be racially motivated, and according to the victim was allegedly at the hands of a white supremacist. It’s unclear if this is related to the second shooting.

Wrong, it was a Black leftist/anarchist that shot himself.

>The sixth and seventh shootings were of two teens who had reportedly driven an SUV through the crowds overnight, including through the park.

Driving a vehicle that was a different make and model, but similar color, and they were killed for it. Two Black teens died because CHOP security extra-judicially shot and killed them because they were misidentified.

Two teens, killed in a no-cop-zone, by “community security”, during a protest that was started due to the extra-judicial killings of Blacks… May have been the most ironic moment of 2020.

So, on my counting there were seven shootings:

None of them were racially motivated.

All have direct links to the protest.