Stelter: Fox News and Facebook are part of the pro-Trump fantasy that allowed the siege of the Chapter

by

“The more research I did this week, the more I realized that Fox News shows and Facebook groups are just part of pro-Trump Fantasyland,” Brian Stelter, CNN’s chief correspondent, said Sunday. , “Reliable Sources”. “It’s a lot of guilt to go around.”

Stelter said Big Tech and conservative media hosted and repeated the lies of President Donald Trump that led to the siege. Trump demanded a message of electoral fraud from the riots, which was broadcast on the right-wing media and social platforms. These messages soon spread to the deepest and ugliest layers of the Internet, from InfoWars to 8chan message boards.

“People say Donald Trump plus the internet are taking extremists out,” CNN correspondent Elle Reeve told Stelter on Saturday. “But I think the reality is a reversal of that: that Donald Trump plus the Internet are bringing extremism to the masses,” Reeve said.
Ahead of Wednesday’s events, Trump supporters rallied on various social platforms, including Twitter, TikTok and Parler, the now-banned social platform popular with conservatives. Many called for violence.
In recent weeks, Amazon Web Services has reported 98 examples of Parler posts encouraging and inciting violence, according to a letter obtained by CNN Business. Amazon, Apple and Google have banned Parler from lacking the ability or desire to moderate violent and detestable discourse on the platform. But this kind of insidious discourse remains on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and many other major social media networks.

Despite efforts to curb the most inciting parts of hate and violence on their networks, including Trump’s ban on Facebook and Twitter last week, Big Tech has largely failed or been unwilling to seize the worst. aspects of social networks. The siege of the Chapter was planned on those platforms.

“Facebook’s own research has shown that two-thirds of the time a user joins an extremist group on Facebook is due to the fact that Facebook’s own algorithm has recommended it,” said Adam Sharp, former head of news, government and elections at Twitter.

Sharp has had a change of heart when it comes to ousting the president from Twitter.

“I didn’t think Twitter or any private company should whitewash the record of this president,” he said. “[But] the president’s violations of the law and Twitter policies when it comes to the threat of Congress are so blatant because he is the president and because he has crossed that very specific constitutional line. “

The role of the right-wing media in violence

The riots in the Capitol were caused by politicians and the media who allow Trump, who for years ignored warnings that such a thing would inevitably happen, CNN Jake Tapper posted on Twitter on Thursday.
“The disturbing scenes that took place on national television on Wednesday were a natural consequence of the lies and conspiracy theories about the presidential election that were fueled weeks ago by Trump supporters,” wrote Oliver Darcy, senior reporter for CNN Business.

Some right-wing figures are distancing themselves from Trump after the Capitol attack. This is a step in the right direction that other conservative hosts must take to prevent future incidents, such as the Capitol riots, said Julie Roginsky, a Democratic strategist and former Fox News contributor, on “Reliable Sources.” .

“Fox News can stop this,” Roginsky said. “I can stop this by putting the truth in power.” She added: “I guess the Murdochs know that [Trump is] unbalanced.”

But if there is any self-reflection on Fox, Newsmax, OAN and other right-wing media, it is not universal.

Some conservative circles are still misinforming about the election. Some personalities have falsely claimed on the air and on social media that the left-wing Antifa groups were responsible for the violence on Wednesday – claims denied by the videos about the attack and arrests of insurgents who support Trump.

“There are always bad actors who will infiltrate large crowds,” Hannity said on Wednesday night after the siege of the Capitol.

And Fox’s Tucker Carlson was quick to say that the violence had nothing to do with racism, despite the fact that the police put up little resistance to the largely white crowd. Police have been comparatively much stronger against black protesters in recent months.

“Whatever you thought about what happened yesterday, what was racist about it? Nothing, of course. There was nothing racist about it,” he said on his show.

By the end of the week, talks about Fox had moved on to Twitter’s decision to ban Trump.

“Trump’s right-wing applause section of the right-wing media is desperately trying to downplay Wednesday’s crimes,” Stelter said. “He’s trying to move on and put it in the memory hole. Twitter would rather cry.”

.Source