- Mar 11, 2015
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One year after members of far-right groups rioted at the U.S. Capitol, the online extremist forums that telegraphed the brutality of Jan. 6 are still home to violent rhetoric.
But they also indicate a different reality: Disparate groups that once united around a shared goal are now struggling to agree on many issues, including what happened on Jan. 6 and how to interpret former President Donald Trump’s support for Covid vaccines.
Calls for violence in these online forums have become less specific, though experts warn they are still cause for concern.
A report to be released Thursday from Advance Democracy, a nonpartisan nonprofit group that conducts public-interest research and investigations, found that “while explicit calls for violence are no longer as prolific, misinformation about election fraud and conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election continue to be prominent” and that “a number of users continue to use violent rhetoric.”
It is a distinct shift from the days leading up to Jan. 6, 2021, when users of TheDonald.Win, an extremist forum that was relocated to an independent website after being banned from Reddit, posted pictures of ammunition in their hotel rooms and maps of the tunnels underneath the Capitol.
Top posts on that same forum in recent weeks have lamented Trump’s support for Covid vaccines and booster shots, as users widely assumed he did not receive them and was against them. They also expressed disillusionment in Trump, whom they believe has not sufficiently stood up for those they call “J6 prisoners,” or those who have faced jail time for participating in violent crimes during the Capitol riot.
That disappointment only grew after Trump on Tuesday canceled his planned Jan. 6 news conference at Mar-a-Lago.
A lie can never win.