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      La historia de un radical: trabajé con uno de los asaltantes del Capitolio

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Capitol Riot FalloutLatest UpdatesInside the SiegeVisual TimelineNotable ArrestsIncitement to Riot?AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe Media EquationLa historia de un radical: trabajé con uno de los asaltantes del CapitolioEn BuzzFeed, nos enfocábamos en realizar contenidos virales para las redes sociales. Un joven empleado aprendió esa noción y la aplicó a la extrema derecha.Simpatizantes del presidente Trump en el Capitolio, en Washington, D. C., el miércoles 6 de enero.Credit…Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA vía Shutterstock12 de enero de 2021 a las 05:00 ETRead in EnglishEncajaba tan bien como cualquier otro empleado en nuestro estudio de Los Ángeles, un lugar lleno de inadaptados ambiciosos con dones inusuales. Sabían cómo crear los videos que la gente quería ver en internet.Su verdadero nombre era Anthime Joseph Gionet, aunque prefería otros. Su valor para BuzzFeed era claro: hacía cualquier cosa por Vine, la plataforma de videos cortos que tuvo un breve auge cultural antes de ser aplastada por Instagram y Snapchat en 2017.Una vez se echó un galón de leche en la cara y el video atrajo millones de visitas, cuando la mayoría de las acrobacias inofensivas divertían a millones de espectadores estadounidenses en esa plataforma.En ese sentido, era natural que estuviera en BuzzFeed cuando llegó en la primavera de 2015, donde yo era el editor en jefe y me encargaba de supervisar el sitio web. Gionet fue contratado para manejar la cuenta de Vine de nuestra sección de videos, y su trabajo consistía principalmente en editar videos tontos y divertidos de hasta seis segundos que producían sus colegas. Al cabo de unos meses, también se hizo cargo de una cuenta de Twitter de BuzzFeed, en la que aprovechó su intuición sobre qué tipo de video compartiría la gente.En esos días, éramos mejores que nadie en la creación de contenido para las redes sociales, sobre todo listas, concursos y videos cortos, pero ocasionalmente también hacíamos espectaculares transmisiones en vivo, la más famosa fue una en la que dos de mis colegas hicieron estallar una sandía llenándola de ligas una por una.Así que el lenguaje que escuché de Gionet, ahora de 33 años, en su “transmisión en vivo” el miércoles pasado me resultó familiar. “Tenemos más de 10.000 personas en vivo que nos observan. ¡Vamos!”, dijo con entusiasmo. “Presionen el botón de seguir. Les agradezco, chicos”.Gionet se encontraba dentro de la oficina del senador por Oregón Jeff Merkley, que estaba en ruinas, transmitiendo desde una de las pocas plataformas que aún no lo habían suspendido, junto con otros simpatizantes de Trump que jugaban con el auricular del teléfono y se subían a los muebles. Parecía una conclusión apropiada para su reciente carrera que algunos podrían considerar como troleo o bromas por internet, pero que probablemente se describe mejor como violencia performativa.Anthime Joseph Gionet en una escena de su transmisión en vivo, el miércoles pasado.Credit…LiveLeakDespués de ver a Gionet, llamé a algunos de mis antiguos colegas, que lo recordaron con una mezcla de perplejidad y repulsión. Era sensible y casi se mostraba desesperado por ser aceptado, dijeron. Una vez se molestó mucho cuando alguien se burló de su bigote grueso rubio y su corte de cabello en mullet. En ese entonces, dos de sus amigos más cercanos de la oficina tenían orígenes étnicos e identidades de género diferentes a la suya, y a veces se unían por un sentimiento de ser marginados. Uno de esos amigos lo recordaba como un personaje triste que no expresaba realmente sus opiniones políticas más allá de la cultura ampliamente adolescente e insensible de Vine, y me dijo que estaba obsesionado con su infancia solitaria en Alaska. Según tres de ellos, parecía que le faltaba algo, que estaba vacío por dentro.A medida que avanzaban las elecciones de 2016, empezó a coquetear con una personalidad política. Primero puso un retrato de Bernie Sanders en su escritorio, dijeron dos excolegas. Luego comenzó a usar gorras de MAGA en la oficina, lo que sorprendió a sus compañeros de trabajo más progresistas, aunque eran bastante apolíticos. En ese entonces algunas personas todavía pensaban que la extrema derecha podría ser “irónica”.Cuando, meses después, dejó BuzzFeed para trabajar como el “coordinador de las giras políticas” de Milo Yiannopoulos, un favorito de la “extrema derecha” racista y antisemita, sus colegas se impresionaron momentáneamente. Luego, revisaron la cuenta de Twitter de Gionet, donde sus declaraciones cada vez más viles le estaban consiguiendo retuits de figuras de la extrema derecha, y se dieron cuenta de que no deberían haberse sorprendido.Sin embargo, no está claro en qué es lo que cree Gionet, si es que cree algo. Y realmente, no estoy seguro de que me importe.Este no es un perfil compasivo de un joven que se ha equivocado. No puedo tener mucha compasión por un tipo que, antes de atacar su Capitolio, pasaba el rato disparando algún tipo de sustancia irritante embotellada (lo llamaba “espray de contenido”) a los ojos de gente inocente para obtener vistas en YouTube y gritándoles a los dependientes de las tiendas que le pedían que usara cubrebocas.Para mí, esta historia es sobre algo diferente, una especie de poder de las redes sociales que ayudamos a afinar en BuzzFeed y que puede ejercer una atracción gravitacional casi irresistible.Si no has tenido la experiencia de publicar algo en las redes sociales que se vuelve verdaderamente viral, es posible que no entiendas su profunda atracción emocional. De repente eres el centro de un universo digital y recibes más atención de más gente que nunca. A veces, el impulso de afirmación es vertiginoso y adictivo. Y, si tienes poco a lo que aferrarte, puedes perderte en todo eso.Incluso cuando buscábamos hacer que nuestro trabajo se difundiera en BuzzFeed, nos enfrentábamos a limitaciones; debíamos decir la verdad en nuestra división de noticias y apegarnos a un conjunto de valores claramente positivos en nuestra rama de entretenimiento. Sin embargo, Gionet finalmente rompió esos límites, pues parecía seguir las señales que encontraba en las redes sociales sin ningún escrúpulo. La única línea que atravesaba era su deseo de construir una audiencia. Apoyaba a Sanders antes de lanzar consignas antisemitas en Charlottesville, Virginia; luego se retractó de manera temporal de esas opiniones extremas y más tarde cometió delitos violentos para obtener vistas en YouTube. Consiguió una audiencia entre los negacionistas del coronavirus y más tarde, cuando aparentemente contrajo la enfermedad, publicó la captura de pantalla de su propia prueba positiva en Instagram con un emoticono de llanto. Semanas después, se unió al levantamiento a favor de Trump en el Capitolio.“Su política se ha guiado por las métricas de la plataforma”, reflexionó Andrew Gauthier, quien fue uno de los principales productores de video de BuzzFeed y quien más tarde trabajó para la campaña presidencial de Joe Biden. “Siempre piensas que el mal vendrá de la maldad del villano de las películas, y entonces piensas: ‘Ay, no, el mal puede empezar con chistes malos y un comportamiento nihilista que es alimentado por el refuerzo positivo en varias plataformas’”.Así que la historia de Gionet no es tan familiar como la de un joven solitario en su dormitorio que empieza a ver videos que envenenan su visión del mundo. Es la historia de un hombre que es recompensado por ser nacionalista blanco violento y que recibe la atención y la afirmación que aparentemente está desesperado por obtener.Pasamos mucho tiempo en BuzzFeed pensando en cómo optimizar nuestro contenido para una audiencia en línea; él se optimizó a sí mismo.Según un informe policial, cuando fue arrestado en Scottsdale, Arizona, el mes pasado por rociar una solución de gas lacrimógeno a un guardia, un oficial informó que Gionet le dijo que era una personalidad influyente y tenía muchos seguidores en las redes sociales. Fue puesto en libertad bajo palabra, dijo un portavoz de la policía de Scottsdale, y está a la espera de ser juzgado. Sin embargo, en el Capitolio, gritó “ACAF”, All Cops Are Friends (“Todos los policías son amigos”, aunque el significado original del acrónimo es menos amistoso).Su historia deja preguntándome qué responsabilidad tenemos quienes fuimos pioneros en el uso de las redes sociales para ofrecer información. ¿Nosotros, junto con los creadores de esas plataformas, ayudamos a abrir la caja de Pandora?No trabajé directamente con Gionet. Pero, en 2012, contraté a un escritor llamado Benny Johnson que estaba cultivando una voz que mezclaba el conocimiento de las redes sociales y la política de derecha. En ese momento pensé, erróneamente, que su visión política era simplemente conservadora. Y lo imaginé prosperando, como lo han hecho los escritores conservadores durante generaciones en las principales salas de redacción, donde cultivaban el mismo interés de sus colegas en encontrar hechos compartidos.Tardé en darme cuenta de que sus intereses no eran periodísticos, ni siquiera ideológicos, sino estéticos, emocionados por las imágenes del poder puro. En la tradición de los propagandistas autoritarios, le asombraban los edificios neoclásicos, las armas y, más tarde, las multitudes de Donald Trump. Y, después de que lo despedimos por plagio en 2014, pasó a liderar la sección de contenido del ala juvenil de Trump, Turning Point USA, y presenta un programa en Newsmax. La semana pasada, animó los intentos de revocar las elecciones (aunque se retractó cuando comenzó la violencia y luego culpó a los izquierdistas por eso). También está vendiendo sus habilidades en la “narración política viral” en la que trabajamos juntos en BuzzFeed a una generación de nuevas figuras de derecha, como la representante Lauren Boebert, quien ha llamado la atención por jurar que lleva su pistola al Congreso. (Ni Gionet ni Johnson respondieron a las consultas por correo electrónico).Mientras refinábamos la nueva práctica de las redes sociales en BuzzFeed, tardamos en darnos cuenta de que la extrema derecha nos observaba de cerca y finalmente nos imitaba. Jonah Peretti, quien fundó The Huffington Post y BuzzFeed, se sorprendió cuando Steve Bannon, quien dirigía Breitbart, le recordó a un escritor que había tomado prestadas tácticas de Peretti para su estrategia en el periodo previo a las elecciones de 2016. Bannon me dijo antes de esas elecciones, en una entrevista en la Trump Tower, que estaba sorprendido de que no hubiéramos convertido a BuzzFeed en un bastión de apoyo para Bernie Sanders, como Breitbart lo hizo con Trump. Notó, quizá de manera correcta, que el tráfico de un medio de propaganda a favor de Sanders habría excedido enormemente lo que obtuvimos por nuestra cobertura justa de las primarias demócratas.“Algunas de las cosas innovadoras que hicimos desde el principio, en la comprensión de las redes sociales y los medios digitales, han sido tomadas por los grupos de extrema derecha, los grupos racistas, los grupos MAGA”, me dijo mi exjefe, Peretti, durante una entrevista la semana pasada. No obstante, Peretti, un eterno optimista, señaló que algunos de los mismos mecanismos sociales que Gionet aprovechó también fueron cruciales para los movimientos sociales progresistas de los últimos años, desde Black Lives Matter hasta #MeToo. “La historia no ha terminado y hay una oportunidad de luchar por un buen internet”, comentó. (Nota: no doy cobertura a BuzzFeed extensamente en esta columna, más allá de apoyarme en lo que aprendí durante mi tiempo allí, y The New York Times ha exigido que no lo haga hasta que me deshaga de mis opciones de compra de acciones en la empresa).Ya estoy escuchando lo que parecen ser dos explicaciones que compiten entre sí por lo que pasó en Washington la semana pasada: que la multitud abrumadoramente blanca, a veces abiertamente racista, encarnaba la vieja y profunda maldad estadounidense; o que las redes sociales transformaron las identidades vacías de algunos estadounidenses para convertirlas en algo radical.Sin embargo, la historia de Gionet muestra cómo esas explicaciones no entran en conflicto. Un hombre que sus colegas consideraban vacío y sin rumbo convirtió su identidad en una especie de espejo de ese viejo mal estadounidense, y se ha convertido en lo que muchos estadounidenses le dijeron que querían que fuera.En un momento de la transmisión en vivo de Gionet durante el asedio al Capitolio, una voz invisible fuera de cámara advierte que Trump “se molestaría mucho” con las payasadas de los alborotadores.“No, estará contento”, respondió Gionet. “Estamos luchando por Trump”.Ben Smith es el columnista de medios. Se unió al Times en 2020, después de ocho años como editor jefe fundador de BuzzFeed News. Antes de eso, cubrió política para Politico, The New York Daily News, The New York Observer y The New York Sun. Correo electrónico: ben.smith@nytimes.com @benytAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      in US Politics

      Opinion divided over Trump's ban from social media

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      As rioters were gathering around the US Capitol last Wednesday, a familiar question began to echo around the offices of the large social networks: what should they do about Donald Trump and his provocative posts?The answer has been emphatic: ban him.First he was suspended from Twitter, then from Facebook. Snapchat, Spotify, Twitch, Shopify, and Stripe have all followed suit, while Reddit, TikTok, YouTube and even Pinterest announced new restrictions on posting in support of the president or his actions. Parler, a social media platform that sells itself on a lack of moderation, was removed from app stores and refused service by Amazon.The action has sparked a huge debate about free speech and whether big technology companies – or, to be more precise, their billionaire chief executives – are fit to act as judge and jury in high-profile cases.So what are the arguments on both sides – and who is making them?FORFor many, such social media bans were the right thing to do – if too late. After all, the incitement has already occurred and the Capitol has already been stormed.“While I’m pleased to see social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube take long-belated steps to address the president’s sustained misuse of their platforms to sow discord and violence, these isolated actions are both too late and not nearly enough,” said Mark Warner, a Democratic senator from Virginia. “Disinformation and extremism researchers have for years pointed to broader network-based exploitation of these platforms.”Greg Bensinger, a member of the editorial board of the New York Times, said what happened on 6 January “ought to be social media’s day of reckoning”.He added: “There is a greater calling than profits, and Mr Zuckerberg and Twitter’s CEO, Jack Dorsey, must play a fundamental role in restoring truth and decency to our democracy and democracies around the world.“That can involve more direct, human moderation of high-profile accounts; more prominent warning labels; software that can delay posts so that they can be reviewed before going out to the masses, especially during moments of high tension; and a far greater willingness to suspend or even completely block dangerous accounts like Mr Trump’s.”Even observers who had previously argued against taking action had changed their mind by the weekend. “Turn off Trump’s account,” wrote tech analyst Ben Thompson.“My preferred outcome to yesterday’s events is impeachment. Encouraging violence to undo an election result that one disagrees with is sedition, surely a high crime or misdemeanor, and I hold out hope that Congress will act over the next few days, as unlikely as that seems … Sometimes, though, the right level doesn’t work, yet the right thing needs to be done.” Free speech activist Jillian C York agreed that action had to be taken, but, she said on Monday: “I’m cautious about praising any of these companies, to be honest. I think that in particular Facebook deserves very little praise. They waited until the last moment to do anything, despite months of calls.“When it comes to Twitter, I think we can be a little bit more forgiving. They tried for many, many months to take cautious decisions. Yes, this is a sitting president; taking them down is a problem. And it is problematic, even if there is a line at which it becomes the right choice.” Some have wondered whether the platforms’ convenient decision to grow a backbone has less to do with the violence of the day and more with political manoeuvring.“It took blood & glass in the halls of Congress – and a change in the political winds – for the most powerful tech companies to recognise, at the last possible moment, the threat of Trump,” tweeted Senator Richard Blumenthal, from Connecticut.AGAINSTPredictably, opposition to Trump’s ban came from his own family. “Free speech is dead and controlled by leftist overlords,” tweeted his son Donald Jr. “The ayatollah and numerous other dictatorial regimes can have Twitter accounts with no issue despite threatening genocide to entire countries and killing homosexuals etc… but The President of the United States should be permanently suspended. Mao would be proud.”But the ban, and the precedent that it could set, has worried some analysts and media experts.“Banning a sitting president from social media platforms is, whichever way you look at it, an assault on free speech,” the Sunday Times wrote in an editorial. “The fact that the ban was called for by, among others, Michelle Obama, who said on Thursday that the Silicon Valley platforms should stop enabling him because of his ‘monstrous behaviour’, will add to the suspicion that the ban was politically motivated.”On Monday, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel – hardly known for her affection for the US president – made it clear that she thought it was “problematic” that Trump had been blocked. Her spokesperson, Steffen Seibert, called freedom of speech “a fundamental right of elementary significance”.She said any restriction should be “according to the law and within the framework defined by legislators – not according to a decision by the management of social media platforms”.The ban has also worried those who are already concerned about the strength of Silicon Valley.“The institutions of American democracy have consistently failed to hold President Trump’s unrestrained authoritarianism, hate and racism accountable,” says Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch, “but this corporate power grab does nothing to benefit American democracy in practice or in principle.”“American democracy is in peril if it relies on a corporate denial of service to protect the nation from its own president, rather than rely on accountable institutions of justice and democracy,” Carlo added.For York, such concerns are valid, but risk an over-emphasis on US politics and concerns. “The majority of the public doesn’t care about these issues on a day-to-day basis,” she says, citing world leaders such as Jair Bolsonaro and Narendra Modi as others who have engaged in hate speech and incitement on Twitter.“It’s only when it hits Trump, and that’s the problem. Because we should be thinking about this as a society day to day.” More

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      in US Politics

      Donald Trump being banned from social media is a dangerous distraction | Matt Stoller and Sarah Miller

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      In the wake of Donald Trump’s instigation of a shocking attack on the US Capitol, it’s easy to demand that Trump be barred from social media.“These corporations should announce a permanent ban of his accounts,” said Representative Bennie Thompson, chair of the House homeland security committee. “Nothing short of that will meet this moment.”Indeed, Facebook, Google and Twitter have taken action, suspending the president from their platforms or removing videos.But whatever one thinks of stopping Trump fomenting violence by limiting his ability to communicate, the ability of democratically unaccountable monopolies with extraordinary control over communications infrastructure, like Facebook and Google, YouTube’s parent company, to silence political speech is exceptionally dangerous. It also sidesteps the underlying problem – that it’s their dominance and business model that promotes conspiratorial, fake and violent content to millions.Policymakers must recognize the choices that enabled the rise of these toxic but wildly lucrative business modelsTrump is not the first demagogue America has seen and he won’t be the last. But his power is amplified by a corrupted information ecosystem created by Google, Facebook and media barons like Rupert Murdoch. Those who came to the Capitol to riot sincerely believed they were stopping the subversion of American democracy because an entire information ecosystem encouraged them to discount any political or media institution that told them otherwise. That ecosystem of disinformation, extremism, rage and bigotry won’t go away by banning Trump or his supporters. That’s because the driving force behind it is profit: Facebook and Google make billions by fostering it.To understand why, policymakers must recognize the choices that enabled the rise of these toxic but wildly lucrative business models. Traditionally, US media regulation encouraged localized press and a neutral system of information distribution, starting with the Post Office in 1791. But beginning in the 1970s, policymakers changed their philosophy to encourage consolidation.They altered rules around advertising, publishing and information distribution markets, weakening antitrust laws, killing important protections like the Fairness Doctrine and passing the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which lifted local media ownership caps and unleashed a wave of mergers and acquisitions. They also enacted Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a provision that today allows tech platforms to escape liability for illegal content they help shape and monetize. And over the last 20 years, policymakers enabled Google and Facebook to roll up the entire digital advertising and communication space by permitting hundreds of mergers, without a single challenge.The net effect is that two giant corporations, Facebook and Google, dominate online communications, profiting by selling advertising against cheaply produced, addictive clickbait and conspiratorial content. Making matters worse, in seeking ad money and quick profits, Facebook and Google, as well as private equity, have killed the pro-social institutions on which we rely, such as local newspapers, by redirecting advertising revenue to themselves. More than one-fourth of American newspapers have disappeared in the last 15 years, with many of those left being hollowed out as “ghost papers” with no news-gathering ability.Filling their place are conspiracy theories like QAnon, which these platforms amplify to turn a handsome profit. Survey results show Google provided ad services to 86% of sites carrying coronavirus conspiracies.This isn’t a uniquely American problem: Facebook, with its addictive user interface designed to maximize engagement, has helped foster deadly mob attacks in India, Sri Lanka and Myanmar and bent to the will of autocrats elsewhere. It’s not just the dramatic, either. More than three in five Americans feel lonely, and there is evidence that social media usage isolates and alienates us, changing our brains and drawing some to political extremism.The problem, in other words, won’t go away with banning Trump, because the problem is that the steady supply of toxic, addictive content that keeps eyeballs on ads is at the heart of these monopolies’ business models. Trump is far from the only supplier of that content now, and there’s no doubt others will rise up to replace him, with a boost from Facebook and Google.The Biden administration and the new Congress can fix these twin problems of monopoly power and profit motive by returning to a traditional policy framework of fair competition, neutral communication networks and business models that finance local news and a diversity of voices.For the tech platforms, Congress and agencies like the Federal Trade Commission have the authority to ban targeted advertising, much in the same way Verizon, for example, is prohibited by law from listening to your private calls and using that information to directly or indirectly advertise to you based on that surveillance.Breaking up these goliaths and prohibiting mergers by dominant firms would force them to compete over users based on data privacy and safety, as Facebook once had to do when it was in a competitive social networking world in the early 2000s. And imposing neutrality, like non-discrimination rules and interoperability requirements, would end the tyranny of algorithms that push us towards incendiary content.The good news is Republican and Democratic attorneys general in 48 states have filed historic antitrust suits against Google and Facebook, seeking to break them up, and the Biden administration and many in Congress seem wide awake to the pernicious role of social media platforms, particularly Facebook and Google, in the fraying of America’s social fabric.But until political leaders recognize that these tech barons make their billions by selling tickets to the end of American democracy, it will continue to creep ever closer. Seeing Trump booted off Facebook may be emotionally satisfying and even potentially prevent dangerous behavior in the short term. But only a wholesale restructuring of our online communications infrastructure can preserve democracy. More

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      in Elections

      The Business Rules the Trump Administration Is Racing to Finish

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Jobs CrisisCurrent Unemployment RateThe First Six MonthsPermanent LayoffsWhen a $600 Lifeline EndedAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe Business Rules the Trump Administration Is Racing to FinishFrom tariffs and trade to the status of Uber drivers, regulators are trying to install new rules or reduce regulations before President-elect Joe Biden takes over.President Trump is rushing to put into effect new economic regulations and executive orders before his term comes to a close.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesJan. 11, 2021, 3:00 a.m. ETIn the remaining days of his administration, President Trump is rushing to put into effect a raft of new regulations and executive orders that are intended to put his stamp on business, trade and the economy.Previous presidents in their final term have used the period between the election and the inauguration to take last-minute actions to extend and seal their agendas. Some of the changes are clearly aimed at making it harder, at least for a time, for the next administration to pursue its goals.Of course, President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. could issue new executive orders to overturn Mr. Trump’s. And Democrats in Congress, who will control the House and the Senate, could use the Congressional Review Act to quickly reverse regulatory actions from as far back as late August.Here are some of the things that Mr. Trump and his appointees have done or are trying to do before Mr. Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20. — Peter EavisProhibiting Chinese apps and other products. Mr. Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday banning transactions with eight Chinese software applications, including Alipay. It was the latest escalation of the president’s economic war with China. Details and the start of the ban will fall to Mr. Biden, who could decide not to follow through on the idea. Separately, the Trump administration has also banned the import of some cotton from the Xinjiang region, where China has detained vast numbers of people who are members of ethnic minorities and forced them to work in fields and factories. In another move, the administration prohibited several Chinese companies, including the chip maker SMIC and the drone maker DJI, from buying American products. The administration is weighing further restrictions on China in its final days, including adding Alibaba and Tencent to a list of companies with ties to the Chinese military, a designation that would prevent Americans from investing in those businesses. — Ana SwansonDefining gig workers as contractors. The Labor Department on Wednesday released the final version of a rule that could classify millions of workers in industries like construction, cleaning and the gig economy as contractors rather than employees, another step toward endorsing the business practices of companies like Uber and Lyft. — Noam ScheiberTrimming social media’s legal shield. The Trump administration recently filed a petition asking the Federal Communications Commission to narrow its interpretation of a powerful legal shield for social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube. If the commission doesn’t act before Inauguration Day, the matter will land in the desk of whomever Mr. Biden picks to lead the agency. — David McCabeTaking the tech giants to court. The Federal Trade Commission filed an antitrust suit against Facebook in December, two months after the Justice Department sued Google. Mr. Biden’s appointees will have to decide how best to move forward with the cases. — David McCabeAdding new cryptocurrency disclosure requirements. The Treasury Department late last month proposed new reporting requirements that it said were intended to prevent money laundering for certain cryptocurrency transactions. It gave only 15 days — over the holidays — for public comment. Lawmakers and digital currency enthusiasts wrote to the Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, to protest and won a short extension. But opponents of the proposed rule say the process and substance are flawed, arguing that the requirement would hinder innovation, and are likely to challenge it in court. — Ephrat LivniLimiting banks on social and environmental issues. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is rushing a proposed rule that would ban banks from not lending to certain kinds of businesses, like those in the fossil fuel industry, on environmental or social grounds. The regulator unveiled the proposal on Nov. 20 and limited the time it would accept comments to six weeks despite the interruptions of the holidays. — Emily FlitterOverhauling rules on banks and underserved communities. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is also proposing new guidelines on how banks can measure their activities to get credit for fulfilling their obligations under the Community Reinvestment Act, an anti-redlining law that forces them to do business in poor and minority communities. The agency rewrote some of the rules in May, but other regulators — the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation — did not sign on. — Emily FlitterInsuring “hot money” deposits. On Dec. 15, the F.D.I.C. expanded the eligibility of brokered deposits for insurance coverage. These deposits are infusions of cash into a bank in exchange for a high interest rate, but are known as “hot money” because the clients can move the deposits from bank to bank for higher returns. Critics say the change could put the insurance fund at risk. F.D.I.C. officials said the new rule was needed to “modernize” the brokered deposits system. — Emily FlitterNarrowing regulatory authority over airlines. The Department of Transportation in December authorized a rule, sought by airlines and travel agents, that limits the department’s authority over the industry by defining what constitutes an unfair and deceptive practice. Consumer groups widely opposed the rule. Airlines argued that the rule would limit regulatory overreach. And the department said the definitions it used were in line with its past practice. — Niraj ChokshiRolling back a light bulb rule. The Department of Energy has moved to block a rule that would phase out incandescent light bulbs, which people and businesses have increasingly been replacing with much more efficient LED and compact fluorescent bulbs. The energy secretary, Dan Brouillette, a former auto industry lobbyist, said in December that the Trump administration did not want to limit consumer choice. The rule had been slated to go into effect on Jan. 1 and was required by a law passed in 2007. — Ivan PennAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      in Elections

      How Parler, a Chosen App of Trump Fans, Became a Test of Free Speech

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Presidential TransitionLatest UpdatesHouse Moves to Remove TrumpHow Impeachment Might WorkBiden Focuses on CrisesCabinet PicksAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyHow Parler, a Chosen App of Trump Fans, Became a Test of Free SpeechThe app has renewed a debate about who holds power over online speech after the tech giants yanked their support for it and left it fighting for survival. Parler was set to go dark on Monday.John Matze, chief executive of the alternative social networking app Parler, has said the app welcomes free speech. Credit…Fox News, via YouTubeJack Nicas and Jan. 10, 2021Updated 10:15 p.m. ETFrom the start, John Matze had positioned Parler as a “free speech” social network where people could mostly say whatever they wanted. It was a bet that had recently paid off big as millions of President Trump’s supporters, fed up with what they deemed censorship on Facebook and Twitter, flocked to Parler instead.On the app, which had become a top download on Apple’s App Store, discussions over politics had ramped up. But so had conspiracy theories that falsely said the election had been stolen from Mr. Trump, with users urging aggressive demonstrations last week when Congress met to certify the election of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.Those calls for violence soon came back to haunt Mr. Matze, 27, a software engineer from Las Vegas and Parler’s chief executive. By Saturday night, Apple and Google had removed Parler from their app stores and Amazon said it would no longer host the site on its computing services, saying it had not sufficiently policed posts that incited violence and crime. As a result, Parler was set to disappear from the web on Monday.That set off a furious effort to keep Parler online. Mr. Matze said on Sunday that he was racing to save the data of Parler’s roughly 15 million users from Amazon’s computers. He was also calling company after company to find one willing to support Parler with hundreds of computer servers.“I believe Amazon, Google, Apple worked together to try and ensure they don’t have competition,” Mr. Matze said on Parler late Saturday. “They will NOT win! We are the worlds last hope for free speech and free information.” He said the app would probably shut down “for up to a week as we rebuild from scratch.”Credit…ScreenshotParler’s plight immediately drew condemnation from those on the right, who compared the big tech companies to authoritarian overlords. Representative Devin Nunes, a California Republican, told Fox News on Sunday that “Republicans have no way to communicate” and asked his followers to text him to stay in touch. Lou Dobbs, the right-wing commentator, wrote on Parler that the app had a strong antitrust case against the tech companies amid such “perilous times.”Parler has now become a test case in a renewed national debate over free speech on the internet and whether tech giants such as Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon have too much power. That debate has intensified since Mr. Trump was barred from posting on Twitter and Facebook last week after a violent mob, urged on by the president and his social media posts, stormed the Capitol.For years, Facebook and Twitter had defended people’s ability to speak freely on their sites, while Amazon, Apple, Google and others had stayed mostly hands-off with apps like Parler. That allowed misinformation and falsehoods to flow across online networks.A screenshot of Mr. Matze’s Parler profile.Users can choose whom to follow on Parler.Credit…ScreenshotThe tech companies’ actions last week to limit such toxic content with Mr. Trump and Parler have been applauded by liberals and others. But the moves also focused attention on the power of these private enterprises to decide who stays online and who doesn’t. And the timing struck some as politically convenient, with Mr. Biden set to take office on Jan. 20 and Democrats gaining control of Congress.The tech companies’ newly proactive approach also provides grist for Mr. Trump in the waning days of his administration. Even as he faces another potential impeachment, Mr. Trump is expected to try stoking anger at Twitter, Facebook and others this week, potentially as a launchpad for competing with Silicon Valley head on when he leaves the White House. After he was barred from Twitter, Mr. Trump said in a statement that he would “look at the possibilities of building out our own platform in the near future.”Ben Wizner, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, said it was understandable that no company wanted to be associated with the “repellent speech” that encouraged the breaching of the Capitol. But he said Parler’s situation was troubling.That was because Apple’s and Google’s removal of Parler from their app stores and Amazon’s halting its web hosting went beyond what Twitter or Facebook do when they curtail a user’s account or their posts, he said. “I think we should recognize the importance of neutrality when we’re talking about the infrastructure of the internet,” he said.In earlier statements, Apple, Amazon and Google said that they had warned Parler about the violent posts on its site and that it had not done enough to consistently remove them. The companies said they required sites like Parler to systematically enforce their rules. They declined to comment further on Sunday.Tech companies pulling support for certain websites is not new. In 2018, Gab, another alternative to Facebook and Twitter that is popular among the far right, was forced offline after it lost support from other companies, including PayPal and GoDaddy, because it had hosted anti-Semitic posts by a man who shot and killed 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue. Gab later came back online with the help of a Seattle company, Epik, which hosts other far-right websites.Even if Parler goes dark, right-wing personalities like Mr. Nunes who have built followings on the app do not lack other communication channels. Many still have ample followings on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, which welcome any user who doesn’t violate their rules, which prohibit threatening violence or posting hate speech.Parler was founded in 2018 by Mr. Matze and a fellow programmer, one of several social-media upstarts that aimed to capitalize on the growing anger of Mr. Trump’s supporters with Silicon Valley. But Parler had a significant advantage: money. Rebekah Mercer, one of Mr. Trump’s largest donors, helped bankroll the site. Other investors include Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service agent and Fox News pundit. It plans to eventually make money by selling ads.The app is essentially a Twitter clone. It enables people to broadcast messages — known as “parleys,” not “tweets” — to followers. Users can also comment on and “echo” — not “retweet” — other users’ posts. When signing up for a new account, people are asked to select their favorite color and are urged to choose from a list of conservative voices to follow, including Mr. Nunes, the Fox News host Sean Hannity and the actress Kirstie Alley.These “influencers” dominate the experience on the site. On Sunday, the Parler newsfeed was a stream of their angry “parleys,” railing at Big Tech and pleading with their followers to follow them elsewhere.“Please sign up for my daily newsletter today, before the tech totalitarians ban everything,” wrote Mr. Bongino, who also controls one of Facebook’s most popular pages.Messages on Parler from Mr. Matze.Parler’s list of top personalities.Parler grew slowly until early 2020, when Twitter began labeling Mr. Trump’s tweets as inaccurate and some of his supporters joined Parler in protest. After November’s election, Parler grew even more quickly as Facebook and Twitter clamped down on false claims that the vote had been rigged. So many users signed up that, at times, they overloaded the company’s systems and forced it to pause new registrations.In total, people downloaded Parler’s app more than 10 million times last year, with 80 percent in the United States, according to Sensor Tower, the app data firm.Last Wednesday, Mr. Trump encouraged his supporters to march to the Capitol to pressure lawmakers to overturn his election loss, leading to a rampage that left five people dead. The rally was planned on Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere. On Parler, people posted advice on which streets to take to avoid the police; some posted about carrying guns inside the Capitol.In an interview with The New York Times hours after the mob stormed the Capitol, Mr. Matze said, “I don’t feel responsible for any of this and neither should the platform, considering we’re a neutral town square that just adheres to the law.”But on Friday, Apple and Google told Parler that it needed to more consistently remove posts that encouraged violence. By Saturday, Apple and Google had removed Parler from their app stores, limiting its ability to reach new users on virtually all of the world’s smartphones.“There is no place on our platform for threats of violence and illegal activity,” Apple said in a statement. Google said, “We do require that apps implement robust moderation for egregious content.”Late Saturday, Amazon told Parler that it would need to find a new place to host its site. Amazon said it had sent Parler 98 examples of posts on its site that encouraged violence, but many remained online.“We cannot provide services to a customer that is unable to effectively identify and remove content that encourages or incites violence against others,” Amazon said.Amazon was scheduled to pull its support for Parler just before midnight Sunday on the West Coast. Amazon said it would preserve Parler’s data so it could move it to other computer servers.“It’s devastating,” Mr. Matze told Fox News on Sunday. “And it’s not just these three companies. Every vendor, from text message services to email providers to our lawyers, all ditched us, too, on the same day.” He said he was struggling to find another company to host Parler’s website.But Jeffrey Wernick, Parler’s chief operating officer, said in an interview that the app had heard from several companies that wanted to help. He declined to name them.“What Parler will look like a month from now, I can’t tell you,” he said. “But Parler will not be gone.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      We Worked Together on the Internet. Last Week, He Stormed the Capitol.

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Presidential TransitionLatest UpdatesHouse Moves to Remove TrumpHow Impeachment Might WorkBiden Focuses on CrisesCabinet PicksAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storythe media equationWe Worked Together on the Internet. Last Week, He Stormed the Capitol.At BuzzFeed, we followed the signals of social media. A young employee followed them all the way to Charlottesville and Capitol Hill.Loyalists to President Trump at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.Credit…Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA, via ShutterstockJan. 10, 2021Updated 9:43 p.m. ETHe fit in as well as anyone did at our Los Angeles studio, a place full of ambitious misfits with an unusual gift. They knew how to make web videos people wanted to watch.His real name was Anthime Joseph Gionet, though he preferred others. His value to BuzzFeed was clear: He’d do anything for the Vine, the short video platform that had a brief cultural moment before being crushed by Instagram and Snapchat in 2017.Once, he poured a gallon of milk on his face and a clip of it drew millions of views, back when mostly harmless stunts amused millions of American viewers on the platform.He was, in that way, a natural for BuzzFeed when he arrived in the spring of 2015, where I was editor in chief, overseeing the website. Mr. Gionet was hired to run the Vine account for our video operation, and his job mostly consisted of editing down to six seconds the silly, fun videos his colleagues produced. Within months, he took over a BuzzFeed Twitter account, too, drawing on his same intuition for what kind of video people would share.We were better than anyone in those days at making things for social media, mostly lists and quizzes and short videos, but also occasionally spectacular live streams, most famously the one where two of my colleagues exploded a watermelon, one rubber band at a time.And so the language I heard from Mr. Gionet, now 33, on his livestream last Wednesday was familiar. “We’ve got over 10,000 people live, watching, let’s go!” he said excitedly. “Hit that follow button — I appreciate you guys.”Mr. Gionet was standing inside the trashed office of Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, streaming from one of the few platforms yet to ban him, alongside other Trump loyalists who played with the telephone receiver and draped themselves over the furniture. It seemed an apt conclusion to a recent career arc that some might see as trolling or internet pranks, but is probably best described as performative violence.Anthime Joseph Gionet last Wednesday in a scene from his livestream.Credit…LiveLeakAfter I saw Mr. Gionet, I called up some of my old colleagues, who recalled him with a mixture of perplexity and repulsion. He was sensitive and almost desperate to be liked, they said, once getting extremely upset when someone made fun of his thick mustache and blond mullet. Two of his closest friends at the office at the time had different ethnic backgrounds and gender identities than he did, and they sometimes bonded over a sense of being outsiders. One of those friends remembered him as a sad character who didn’t really express political views beyond the broadly bro-ey and insensitive culture of Vine, and who confided that he was haunted by a lonely childhood in Alaska. He seemed, three of them said, to be missing something — to be hollow inside.As the 2016 election took hold, he started to flirt with a political persona. He first put a Bernie Sanders portrait on his desk, two former colleagues said. Then, he moved on to wearing MAGA hats around the office, which raised eyebrows among his more progressive, if fairly apolitical, co-workers, though that was when some people still imagined the far right could be “ironic.”When he left BuzzFeed later that year to work as the “tour manager” for Milo Yiannopoulos, a darling of the racist and anti-Semitic “alt-right,” colleagues were momentarily shocked. Then, they scrolled through Mr. Gionet’s Twitter account, where his increasingly vile statements were getting him retweets from far-right figures, and realized that they shouldn’t have been.Still, it’s not clear what Mr. Gionet actually believes, if anything. And really, I’m not sure I care.This isn’t a sympathetic profile of a young man gone wrong. I can’t muster much pity for a guy who, before he was attacking his Capitol, spent his time shooting some kind of bottled irritant (he called it “content spray”) into the eyes of innocent people for YouTube views and shouting at store clerks who asked him to wear a mask.To me, this story is about something different, a sort of social media power that we helped sharpen at BuzzFeed that can exert an almost irresistible gravitational pull.If you haven’t had the experience of posting something on social media that goes truly viral, you may not understand its profound emotional attraction. You’re suddenly the center of a digital universe, getting more attention from more people than you ever have. The rush of affirmation can be giddy, and addictive. And if you have little else to hold on to, you can lose yourself to it.Even as we sought to make our work spread at BuzzFeed, we faced constraints — by truth in our news division, by hewing to a broadly positive set of values on our entertainment side. But Mr. Gionet ultimately broke loose of those boundaries, seeming to follow the signals he found on social media without any scruple. The only through line was his desire to build an audience. He was boosting Bernie Sanders before he was chanting anti-Semitic slogans in Charlottesville, Va., then temporarily recanting those extreme views and later committing violent crimes to get views on YouTube. He built an audience among coronavirus deniers and then, when he apparently contracted the disease, posted the screenshot of his own positive test to Instagram with a tearful emoji. A few weeks later, he joined the pro-Trump uprising in the Capitol.“His politics have been guided by platform metrics,” reflected Andrew Gauthier, who was a top video producer at BuzzFeed and later worked for Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s presidential campaign. “You always think that evil is going to come from movie villain evil, and then you’re like — oh no, evil can just start with bad jokes and nihilistic behavior that is fueled by positive reinforcement on various platforms.”And so Mr. Gionet’s story isn’t quite the familiar one of a lonely young man in his bedroom falling down a rabbit hole of videos that poison his worldview. It’s the story of a man being rewarded for being a violent white nationalist, and getting the attention and affirmation that he’s apparently desperate for.We spent a lot of time at BuzzFeed thinking about how to optimize our content for an online audience; he optimized himself.When he was arrested in Scottsdale, Ariz., last month for spraying mace into the eyes of a bouncer, an officer reported that Mr. Gionet “informed me that he was a ‘influencer’ and had a large following on social media,” according to a police report. He was released on his own recognizance, a Scottsdale police spokesman said, and is awaiting trial. Nonetheless, in the Capitol, he yelled “A.C.A.F.” — All Cops Are Friends (though the original meaning of the acronym is less friendly).His story leaves me wondering what share of blame those of us who pioneered the use of social media to deliver information deserve at this moment. Did we, along with the creators of those platforms, help open Pandora’s box?I didn’t work directly with Mr. Gionet. But in 2012, I did hire a writer named Benny Johnson who was cultivating a voice that blended social media savvy and right-wing politics. I thought, wrongly, of his politics at the time as just conservative. And I imagined him thriving, as conservative writers have done for generations in mainstream newsrooms, where they shared their colleagues’ interest in finding shared facts.I was slow to realize that his interests weren’t journalistic, or even ideological, as much as they were aesthetic, thrilled by the imagery of raw power. In the tradition of authoritarian propagandists, he was awed by neoclassical buildings, guns and, later, Donald Trump’s crowds. And, after we fired him for plagiarism in 2014, he went on to lead the content arm of Mr. Trump’s youth wing, Turning Point USA, and host a show on Newsmax. Last week, he was cheerleading attempts to overturn the election (though he pulled back when the violence began and later blamed leftists for it). He’s also selling his skills in the “viral political storytelling” that we worked together on at BuzzFeed to a generation of new right-wing figures like Representative Lauren Boebert, who has won attention for vowing to bring her handgun to work in Congress. (Neither Mr. Gionet nor Mr. Johnson responded to email inquiries.)While we were refining the new practice of social media at BuzzFeed, we were slow to realize that the far right was watching closely and eventually imitating us. Jonah Peretti, who founded The Huffington Post as well as BuzzFeed, was surprised when Steve Bannon, who ran Breitbart, recalled to a writer that he’d borrowed elements of his strategy from Mr. Peretti in the run-up to the 2016 election. Mr. Bannon told me before that election, in an interview in Trump Tower, that he was surprised we hadn’t turned BuzzFeed to pure Bernie Sanders boosterism, as Breitbart did for Donald Trump. He noted, probably correctly, that the traffic for a pro-Sanders propaganda outlet would have greatly exceeded what we got for fair coverage of the Democratic primary.“Some of the innovative things we did early on, in understanding social media and digital media, have been taken up by alt-right groups, racist groups, MAGA groups,” my old boss, Mr. Peretti, told me in an interview last week. But Mr. Peretti, an eternal optimist, noted that some of the same social mechanisms that Mr. Gionet exploited were also crucial to the sweeping progressive social movements of the last few years, from Black Lives Matter to #MeToo. “The story’s not done and there’s an opportunity to fight for a good internet,” he said. (Disclosure: I don’t cover BuzzFeed extensively in this column, beyond leaning on what I learned during my time there, and The Times has required that I not do so until I divest my stock options in the company.)I’m already hearing what seem to be two competing explanations of what happened in Washington last week: that the overwhelmingly white, sometimes overtly racist, mob embodied old, deep unexpurgated American evil; or that social media reshaped some Americans’ blank slate identities into something radical.But Mr. Gionet’s story shows how those explanations don’t really conflict. A man his colleagues saw as empty and driftless turned his identity into a kind of a mirror of that old American evil, and has become what many Americans told him they wanted him to be.At one point in Mr. Gionet’s livestream during the siege of the Capitol, an unseen voice off camera warns that President Trump “would be very upset” with the antics of the rioters.“No, he’ll be happy,” Mr. Gionet responded. “We’re fighting for Trump.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Trump attempted a coup: he must be removed while those who aided him pay | Robert Reich

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      A swift impeachment is imperative but from Rudy Giuliani and Don Jr to Fox News and Twitter, the president did not act aloneInsurrection: the day terror came to the US CapitolCall me old-fashioned, but when the president of the United States encourages armed insurgents to breach the Capitol and threaten the physical safety of Congress, in order to remain in power, I call it an attempted coup. Related: Saving Justice review: how Trump’s Eye of Sauron burned everything – including James Comey Continue reading… More

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      ‘Our President Wants Us Here’: The Mob That Stormed the Capitol

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Presidential TransitionliveLatest UpdatesMoves to ImpeachHow impeachment Might WorkBiden Focuses on CrisesHow Mob Stormed CapitolCrowds of Trump supporters swarmed past barricades and breached the Capitol Building on Wednesday.Credit…Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg‘Our President Wants Us Here’: The Mob That Stormed the CapitolThey came from around the country with different affiliations — QAnon, Proud Boys, elected officials, everyday Americans — united by one allegiance.Crowds of Trump supporters swarmed past barricades and breached the Capitol Building on Wednesday.Credit…Victor J. Blue/BloombergSupported byContinue reading the main storyDan Barry, Mike McIntire and Jan. 9, 2021Updated 7:10 p.m. ETIt was the table setter for what would come, with nearly 2,000 people gathering in Washington on Tuesday evening for a “Rally to Save America.” Speaker after angry speaker stoked stolen-election conspiracy theories and name-checked sworn enemies: Democrats and weak Republicans, Communists and Satanists.Still, the crowd seemed a bit giddy at the prospect of helping President Trump reverse the result of the election — though at times the language evoked a call to arms. “It is time for war,” one speaker declared.As the audience thinned, groups of young men emerged in Kevlar vests and helmets, a number of them holding clubs and knives. Some were aligned with the neofascist Proud Boys; others with the Three Percenters, a far-right militia group.“We’re not backing down anymore,” said a man with fresh stitches on his head. “This is our country.”That night reflected a disconcerting mix of free speech and certain menace; of everyday Americans supporting their president and extremists prepared to commit violence for him. All had assembled in answer to Mr. Trump’s repeated appeals to attend a march to the Capitol the next day that he promised would be “wild.”A rally Tuesday night set the stage for the mayhem the next day.Credit…Kenny Holston for The New York TimesIt was. By Wednesday afternoon, a narrow group of Trump supporters — some exuberant, some hellbent — had been storm-tossed together into infamy. A mob overran the nation’s Capitol, as lawmakers hid in fear. Wholesale vandalism. Tear gas. Gunfire. A woman dead; an officer dead; many injured. Chants of “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!”But the insurrection failed.It had been the culmination of a sustained assault by the president and his enablers on fact-based reality, one that began long before the November election but took on a fevered urgency as the certainty of Mr. Trump’s defeat solidified. For years, he had demonized political opponents and the media and egged on thuggish behavior at his rallies.Since losing to Joseph R. Biden Jr., he had mounted a campaign of lies that the presidency was being stolen from him, and that marching on the Capitol was the last chance to stop it. To many Americans, it looked like one more feel-good rally to salve Mr. Trump’s wounded ego, but some of his supporters heard something altogether different — a battle cry.Now, dozens of them have been arrested — including an armed Alabama man who had Molotov cocktails in his car and a West Virginia lawmaker charged with illegally entering the Capitol — and the Federal Bureau of Investigation is asking for help in identifying those who “actively instigated violence.” Many participants in the march are frantically working to erase digital evidence of their presence for fear of losing a job or being harassed online.Mr. Trump, meanwhile, has been broadly condemned and cut off from his social media megaphones, as a new administration prepares to take power.Kevin Haag, 67, a retired landscaper from North Carolina who ascended the Capitol steps as the crowd surged forward, said he did not go inside and disapproved of those who did. Even so, he said he would never forget the sense of empowerment as he looked down over thousands of protesters. It felt so good, he said, to show people: “We are here. See us! Notice us! Pay attention!”Now, back home after several days of reflection, Mr. Haag, an evangelical Christian, wonders whether he went too far. “Should I get down on my knees and ask for forgiveness?” he said in an interview. “I am asking myself that question.”But the experience seemed to have only hardened the resolve of others. Couy Griffin, 47, a Republican county commissioner from New Mexico, spoke of organizing another Capitol rally soon — one that could result in “blood running out of that building” — in a video he later posted to the Facebook page of his group, Cowboys for Trump.Couy Griffin, a Republican county commissioner from New Mexico and organizer of the group Cowboys for Trump, said a future Capitol rally could have “blood running out of that building.”CreditCredit…Cowboys for Trump via YouTube“At the end of the day, you mark my word, we will plant our flag on the desk of Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer,” he said. He paused before adding, “And Donald J. Trump if it boils down to it.”Plans take shape online: ‘Pack a crowbar’The advance publicity for the “March for America” had been robust. Beyond the repeated promotions in tweets by the president and his allies, the upcoming event was cheered on social media, including Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.But woven through many of the messages to stand up for Mr. Trump — and, if possible, block the congressional certification of the election he claimed he had won — was language that flirted with aggression, even violence.For example, the term “Storm the Capitol” was mentioned 100,000 times in the 30 days preceding Jan. 6, according to Zignal Labs, a media insights company. Many of these mentions appeared in viral tweet threads that discussed the possible storming of the Capitol and included details on how to enter the building.To followers of QAnon, the convoluted collection of conspiracy theories that falsely claims the country is dominated by deep-state bureaucrats and Democrats who worship Satan, the word “storm” had particular resonance. Adherents have often referred to a coming storm, after which Mr. Trump would preside over a new government order.In online discussions, some QAnon followers and militia groups explored which weapons and tools to bring. “Pack a crowbar,” read one message posted on Gab, a social media refuge for the far right. In another discussion, someone asked, “Does anyone know if the windows on the second floor are reinforced?”Still, the many waves of communication did not appear to result in a broadly organized plan to take action. It is also unclear if any big money or coordinated fund-raising was behind the mobilization, though some Trump supporters appear to have found funds through opaque online networks to help pay for transportation to the rally.“Patriots, if you need financial help getting to DC to support President Trump on January 6th, please go to my website,” a QAnon adherent who identified himself as Thad Williams, of Tampa, Fla., posted on Twitter three days before the event. He said he had raised more than $27,000. (After the Capitol assault, the money transfer companies PayPal and Stripe shut down his accounts. Mr. Williams did not return a phone message, but the website for his organization, Joy In Liberty, said it had given out $30,000 to fund transportation for “deserving patriots.”)Trump supporters traveling together on an overnight bus trip from Massachusetts to Washington.Credit…Joseph Prezioso/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesOther rally goers set up fund-raising accounts through the online service GoFundMe; Buzzfeed News cited at least a dozen, and GoFundMe has since closed them.One of the most conspicuous figures in the Capitol assault — a bare-chested man with a painted face, flag-draped spear and fur hat with horns — was linked to the online fund-raising. A familiar presence at pro-Trump rallies in Phoenix, Jacob Anthony Chansley, a 33-year-old voice-over actor, is known as the Q Shaman. He started a GoFundMe account in December to help pay for transportation to another Trump demonstration in Washington, but the effort reportedly netted him just $10. Mr. Chansley retweeted Mr. Williams’s funding offer on Jan. 3, but it is unclear whether he benefited from it.Jacob Anthony Chansley, center, a QAnon adherent known as the Q Shaman.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesOn Tuesday, the eve of the march, a couple thousand people gathered at Freedom Plaza in Washington for “The Rally to Save America” event, permitted as “The Rally to Revival.” The disparate interests of those attending were reflected by the speakers: well-known evangelists, alt-right celebrities (Alex Jones of Infowars) and Trump loyalists, including his former national security adviser Michael Flynn and the self-described Republican dirty trickster Roger Stone, both of whom he had pardoned.The speakers repeatedly encouraged the attendees to see themselves as foot soldiers fighting to save the country. Americans, Mr. Flynn said, were ready to “bleed” for freedom.Roger Stone, a Trump ally who was convicted of lying to Congress and later pardoned, spoke at the rally Tuesday night.Credit…Samuel Corum/Getty Images“The members of the House of Representatives, the members of the United States Senate, those of you who are feeling weak tonight, those of you that don’t have the moral fiber in your body, get some tonight,” he said. “Because tomorrow, we the people are going to be here and we want you to know we will not stand for a lie.”Then came tomorrow.Inside, the Capitol descends into chaosIt was President Trump’s turn. At about noon on Wednesday, he emerged from a viewing party in a tent, strode onto a stage set up in a park just south of the White House and, for more than an hour, delivered a stream of inflammatory words.He exhorted the crowd of more than 8,000 to march to the Capitol to pressure lawmakers: “Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong.”“You’ll never take back our country with weakness,” the president told supporters, and urged them to march to the Capitol.Credit…Pete Marovich for The New York TimesEven before he had finished speaking, people started moving east toward the Capitol. The crowd included supporters who had come by caravan from across the country, Trump flags rippling in the wind, as well as people so moved by the president’s appeal for support that they had jumped into their cars and driven for hours.The Presidential TransitionLatest UpdatesUpdated Jan. 8, 2021, 10:32 p.m. ETMore national security officials resign from a White House in turmoil.Josh Hawley faces blowback for role in spurious challenge of election results.Read the draft of a leading article of impeachment against Trump.They traveled from various corners of resentment in 21st-century America. Whether motivated by a sense of economic disenfranchisement or distrust of government, by bigotry, or conspiracy or a belief that Mr. Trump is God’s way of preparing for the Rapture, they shared a fealty to the president.Now the moment had come, a moment that twinned the thrilling with the ominous.“I’m happy, sad, afraid, excited,” said Scott Cyganiewicz, 56, a floor installer from Gardner, Mass., as he watched the throngs of Trump loyalists streaming through the streets. “It’s an emotional roller coaster.”American flags and Trump paraphernalia mingled in the crowd.Credit…Pete Marovich for The New York TimesMr. Cyganiewicz said he was on his way out of town. He did not want to be around if violence broke out. Only a portion of the broader crowd continued onto the Capitol grounds.Credit…Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA, via ShutterstockSoon word spread that Vice President Mike Pence — who would oversee the pro forma count by Congress of the electoral votes for certification — had announced he would not be complicit in the president’s efforts to overturn the election.“You can imagine the emotion that ran through people when we get that word,” said Mr. Griffin, the county commissioner from New Mexico, in a video he posted on social media. “And then we get down to the Capitol and they have all the inauguration set up for Joe Biden.”He added, “What do you think was going to happen?”Many in the crowd spoke portentously of violence — or even of another Civil War. A man named Jeff, who said he was an off-duty police officer from York County, Pa., said he didn’t know what would happen after he and his wife Amy reached the Capitol. But he felt ready to participate if something were to erupt.“There’s a lot of people here willing to take orders,” he said. “If the orders are given, the people will rise up.”By the time the bulk of the crowd reached the building, its leading edge had metastasized into an angry mob. A man barked into a megaphone: “Keep moving forward! Fight for Trump, fight for Trump!”“Military Tribunals! Hang them!” shouted someone wearing a cowboy hat.“Arrest Congress!” screamed a woman in a flag scarf.People surged past a few Capitol Police officers to bang on the windows and doors. Many eyewitness accounts and videos have since emerged that convey the pandemonium as hundreds of people overwhelmed the inadequate law-enforcement presence. In several instances of role reversal, for example, rioters are seen firing what appeared to be pepper spray at police officers trying to prevent mobs from getting closer to the Capitol Building.Crowds swarming the Capitol Building were met with tear gas.Credit…Kenny Holston for The New York TimesAfter a few minutes, the crowd broke through and began streaming into an empty office. Glass shards crunched under people’s feet, as the scene descended into chaos.Some stood in awe, while others took action. As one group prepared to break through an entryway, a Trump supporter raised a wine bottle and shouted, “Whose way?” To which the crowd responded, “Our way!” Confusion reigned. “Hey what’s the Senate side?” said a tall man in camouflage and sunglasses. “Where’s the Senate? Can somebody Google it?”All the while, members of The Oath Keepers, a self-proclaimed citizens’ militia, seemed to be standing guard — for the transgressors. They wore olive-drab shirts, helmets and patches on their upper-left sleeves that said, “Guardians of the Republic” and “Not on Our Watch.”American flags flapped beside “Trump 2020” flags, and people wearing “Make America Great Again” regalia moved beside people wearing anti-Semitic slogans. Chants of “Hell No, Never Joe” and “Stop the Steal” broke out, as did strains of “God Bless America” and “The Star-Spangled Banner.”Derrick Evans of West Virginia, who just two months before had been elected as a Republican state delegate, wandered the halls of the Capitol Building, filming himself and joining in the occasional chant. At one point he shouted, “Derrick Evans is in the Capitol!”Derrick Evans, a Republican state delegate in West Virginia, has been charged in connection with the events.Credit… Outside the building, Mr. Griffin, who was once photographed wearing a 10-gallon hat and sitting across from President Trump in the Oval Office, was now gleefully addressing the camera from atop one of the crowded terraces, declaring it “a great day for America.” Asserting that “we came peacefully,” he was interrupted by a man wearing a jacket with a hand-grenade logo, who said, “Believe me, we are well armed if we need to be.”Amid the cheers and whoops of excitement were questions of what to do next. Some can be heard hunting for specific members of congress, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose office was broken into by several people. She and other lawmakers were hiding for fear of their safety.One image showed a trim man moving through the Senate chamber in full paramilitary regalia: camouflage uniform, Kevlar vest, a mask and baseball cap obscuring his face. He carried a stack of flex cuffs — the plastic restraints used by police. The image raised a question yet to be answered: Why carry restraints if not to use them?Crowds streaming into the Capitol. “We wait and take orders from our president,” a man could be heard saying on a livestream video. Credit…Roberto Schmidt/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSeveral rioters wielded fire extinguishers. One stood on a balcony on the Capitol building’s west side, spraying down on police officers trying to fend off the crowd. Others carried them into the building itself, one into Statuary Hall and another onto the steps outside the Senate Chamber, spraying in the direction of journalists and police officers.“Our president wants us here,” a man can be heard saying during a livestream video that showed him standing within the Capitol building. “We wait and take orders from our president.”Despite his followers’ hopes and expectations, President Trump was missing in action as rioters rampaged through the halls of Congress. It would be hours before he eventually surfaced in a somewhat subdued videotaped appeal for them to leave.“We have to have peace,” he said. “So go home, we love you, you’re very special.”Trump supporters trying to break through a police barrier.Credit…John Minchillo/Associated PressSome of Mr. Trump’s supporters expressed frustration, even disbelief, that the president seemed to have given up after they had put themselves on the line for him.Mr. Haag, the retired landscaper, was among the disappointed. Still, he said, the movement will continue even without Mr. Trump.“We are representing the 74 million people who got disenfranchised,” he said. “We are still out here. We are a force to be reckoned with. We are not going away.”One man wandered away from the Capitol in the evening gloom, yelling angrily through a megaphone that Mr. Pence was a coward and, now, Mr. Trump had told everyone “to just go home.”“Well, he can go home to his Mar-a-Lago estate,” the man shouted, adding, “We gotta go back to our businesses that are closed!”As some rioters face fallout, others mull a repeatIn the aftermath of what Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, called a “failed insurrection,” scores of those who responded to the incendiary words of the president now face a reckoning.A chief target of investigators will be whoever struck Brian Sicknick of the Capitol Police with a fire extinguisher; the 42-year-old officer died Thursday after being injured in the riot. At the same time, authorities are investigating the fatal police shooting of Ashli Babbitt, 35, an Air Force veteran who had joined those breaching the Capitol.Richard Barnett, an Arkansas man pictured in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office, has been charged with a federal crime.Credit…Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA, via ShutterstockAmong those charged so far with federal crimes are Mr. Chansley, the so-called Q Shaman; Mr. Evans, the West Virginia lawmaker — who resigned on Saturday; and Richard Barnett, an Arkansas man who was depicted in a widely circulated photograph sitting with his foot on a desk in Ms. Pelosi’s office.Meanwhile, Mr. Griffin, the commissioner from New Mexico who runs Cowboys for Trump, saw his group’s Twitter account suspended and calls for his resignation.The anger, resentment and conspiracy-laced distrust that led to Wednesday’s mayhem did not dissipate with Thursday’s dawn. Along with the smashed furniture in the Capitol Building, there were smashed expectations of a continued Trump presidency, of lawmakers held to account, of holy prophecies fulfilled.Signs of potential violence have already surfaced. Twitter, which terminated Mr. Trump’s account on Friday, noted that “plans for future armed protests have already begun proliferating” online, including “a proposed secondary attack on the U.S. Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17.”Shattered glass and other remnants of the day.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesThe urge for more civil unrest is being discussed in the usual squalid corners of the internet. Private chat groups on Gab and Parler are peppered with talk of a possible “Million Militia March” on Jan. 20 that would disrupt the presidential inauguration of Mr. Biden.There is chatter about ride shares, where to find lodging in the Washington area — and what to bring. Baseball bats, perhaps, or assault rifles.“We took the building once,” one commenter posted, “we can take it again.”Reporting was contributed by More