Senate Report Shows Need to Investigate Social Media Role in Insurrection - Just Security

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Senate Report on Jan. 6 points to need for investigation of social media's role in insurrection.

1 Role in propagating Big Lie
2 Tools for assessing risk of violent extremism
3 Diagnosis of ongoing size of insurrectionist movement

from @justinhendrix

Senate Report Shows Need to Investigate Social Media Role in Insurrection
Hendrix identifies three lines of inquiry for an investigation to follow.
justsecurity.org
5:55 AM · Jun 9, 2021

https://www.justsecurity.org/76829/senate-report-on-january-6-points-to-need-to-investigate-role-of-social-media-in-insurrection/

In its decision last week on whether to reinstate Donald Trump on its platform, Facebook rejected, in part, the recommendation of its Oversight Board to start a new internal investigation into its role in the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6. The company said, “elected officials” should lead “an objective review of these events, including contributing societal and political factors” that led to the violence that day. On Tuesday, the Senate produced the result of one such review, a joint report of the Homeland Security and Rules Committees that assesses the “security, planning and response failures on January 6.”

The document points to the necessity of a thorough investigation of January 6 to get at questions the two Senate committees were unable to address. Commentators were rightfully quick to point out that among the unanswered questions, of course, is the role of Donald Trump and his White House as well as the Department of Defense that day. For instance, the report says the Department of Justice and the DC National Guard “have conflicting records of when orders and authorizations were given, and no one could explain why DCNG did not deploy until after 5:00 pm.” It also notes the Department of Justice was responsible for security preparations ahead of January 6, “but DOJ did not conduct interagency rehearsals or establish an integrated security plan.” These are fundamental issues that need resolution.

But a close read of the report suggests lines of inquiry regarding social media that require substantial, independent investigation. Key aspects of the report suggest the security response hinged on various agency analyses (or lack thereof) of social media posts ahead of the attack, and point to larger questions about the role of the platforms in propagating the false claims that created the conditions for the insurrection and facilitating the actions of the insurrectionists themselves. For instance, here are three areas of concern prompted by the Senate report:

1. Propagating the Big Lie

What is perhaps most important about the Senate report is what it does not include. According to the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent, to pass muster with Republicans, the language in the report notably lacks any reference to “the extent to which Republican lawmakers fed Trump’s lies about the election for many weeks, or the role of this in inciting the rioters, or the degree to which some GOP lawmakers themselves prompted the Jan. 6 event.”

*snip*