back to article As Twitter blocks white supremacists posing as anti-fascists, FBI appeal is flooded with images of cop violence

Anyone who has ever been involved in a demo will know its key defining characteristic is confusion. With protests across America over the death of George Floyd, systemic racism, and police brutality moving into another day, the internet has become as much a battleground as the streets. An example of the confusion comes in the …

  1. Mark 85

    Overall, this is pretty sad and scary state of affairs and not the first time this has happened nor probably the last.

    The guy at the top hasn't said much to calm people down it seems. Mostly the opposite with his silence except to scream about his enemies and the fire and fury he'll bring down which will do the opposite of opening dialog.

    I note that Zuck doesn't seem to care what goes up on FB as long he makes profit. So read into that what you want in order of things going on.

    As for the rest of us, i hope we stay safe and try to calm things as best we can. Yes, there's outrage at what's happened not only to George Flyod but others not only black but just about any race other than white. Those stirring the pot have their own agendas and many of those are not about peace but destruction.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      ... if they're white and poor they're a target too.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      He's moving the army in

      Inflammatory rhetoric from Trump, a peaceful protest demonized, stuffed with agent-provocateurs and bad actors to undermine the peace.

      Trump moves the military in:

      https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/02/politics/national-guard-states-pentagon/index.html

      For the protest to fizzle out, the bad actors need to be prosecuted, justice needs to have been done and seen to be done. But that's not happening. Each injustice is replaced by two more. Escalating.

      The provocateurs are provoking more. Fox News is ramping up the demonization of the protestors. Republican toadies are spewing the hate. The end game is therefore a mass killing by the military and the subsequent military control needed to suppress a backlash.

      The Supreme Court chooses between 'law and order by gunpoint' or 'chaos' if you remove the middle option of 'justice'. Which is what Trump is doing here. Trump will pardon the officers that killed George Floyd if things fizzle out. The Supreme Court cannot choose chaos, so they will choose dictatorship.

      Fox News screams 'kill them' 'kill them' 'kill them', and the Generals will kill them.

      If you use the army against the people, then the army is complicit, the Generals who issued the orders are complicit. They become part of the plotting, part of the crime. They are "only following orders" but at the end of the day, they did the massacre and fear they will be prosecuted for it. The military props up the dictator because they don't want to be the scape goat if the dictator falls.

      What would be nice.

      If the offices of government enforced the law, not the Barr interpretation of the law. The law says "Congress gets his tax returns", so send Congress the tax returns. The law says "Congress gets to see those Russian-Deutschebank transfers", so the bank should send them details of those bank transfers. Don't ask Barr to give permission to comply with the laws, simply comply with the laws.

      If you put back the middle option, "justice", then all sorts of options open up. Including a peaceful transition of government.

      But you have to follow the law, not Barr. You have to follow the Constitution, not Kavanaugh.

      If the people follow the law, the Supreme Court has no option but to follow the law too. Trump has no option but to follow the law too. Barr has no option but to follow the law too.

      My 2 cents.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Barr's private army

        Barr seems to have his own army:

        https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gvkrak/dc_now_no_badges_no_names_no_ids_no_insignia_no/

        Paramilitary force outside the normal judicial and policing domains protecting the DOJ building. Barrs office.

        If you follow the law and not only the laws that Barr gives you permission to follow, then Barr's 4 guys are not enough for him to take control.

        There are a lot of subpoenas out from Congress to investigate Trumps Russia connections, including some against Erik Prince. The law was not followed, Barr simply said it would not be followed and that was it.

        But if you follow the law anyway, Barr is powerless. Sure he can sack you, but you can always sue for wrongful dismissal. He can try to arrest you, but in court, you were following the law, and Barr was asking you to break the law.

        So follow the law.

        Follow the constitution.

        Follow the State laws.

        Don't follow Trump's guys as they subvert the laws.

        Don't be dragged into their crimes.

      2. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: He's moving the army in

        So far the military have proved rather more disciplined. It's almost as if they had rules and are 40% black

      3. J.G.Harston Silver badge

        Re: He's moving the army in

        Trump can't pardon Floyd's killers, as he is the head of the *Federal* government, not the head of the *state* government whose laws were broken. Unless Floyd was a Federal employee, his killing is not a Federal crime.

    3. itzman

      Que?

      I don't see what all the fuss is about. Obviously those sterling moral anti-facsists would never behave - er - like a bunch of jackbooted fascist agitators, would they?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Que?

        Haven't you heard, being anti-fascist is now illegal.

        I guess we're all fascists now - bagsy being Franco

        1. teknopaul

          Re: Que?

          I still cant believe Trump came out and said "I'm with the fascists".

          Obviously, he has made up the involvment of the antifascists in this, and is name calling, but...

          However racist the white majority are, they might not rally behind the term Fascist.

          @the_real_antifa should re-brand as the antinazi-league: see if Trump is dumb enough to come out as pro-nazi.

  2. Cederic Silver badge

    naughtiness on all sides

    I've seen video of the police attacking people that are merely walking alone down the street, or stood in their own front gardens, let alone all the instances of police attacking journalists mid-broadcast.

    I've also seen video of rioters attacking the police, attacking police cars, attacking (and burning) a police station.

    I've seen video of people that aren't in police uniform attacking innocent bystanders, attacking journalists, attacking the cars and houses of people that are indicating support for the peaceful protests.

    I'm happy to condemn all of this violence.

    I've also seen footage of people looting, of people setting fire to property, of people attacking store owners. I'm happy to condemn all of that too.

    There's footage of provocateurs digging up pavement, handing out bricks, paying people to cause trouble, initiating violence. The police have reported finding caches of improvised incendiaries. I thoroughly condemn that agitation.

    Much nicer is the video of people protesting peacefully. The footage of police joining the peaceful protests and hugging protesters. The many instances of police watching and not interfering, the protesters that aren't doing anything that would require police involvement. There's a photograph of peaceful protesters protecting an isolated policeman.

    I can support all of that.

    But at no point in any of this have I needed to mention the colour of anybody's skin. Condemn or support the actions, not the colour of the people doing them.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

      1. Cederic Silver badge

        Re: naughtiness on all sides

        Sadly 5 people (so far) have disagreed. Such is life. It's written without references because it was too long anyway, but yes, everything I referenced is because of something I've seen on a video (except the static image I mentioned).

        The police assaults:

        The lone man walking down a street was broadcast on Monday night on Newsnight, if you want to hunt that one down.

        This lady was on her own property: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-02/minneapolis-woman-shot-at-by-police-during-george-floyd-protests/12310592

        (I'm not sure if that was the police or National Guard but the footage speaks for itself)

        https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-52880970 summarises a few of the journalist ones.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: naughtiness on all sides

        But to paraphrase, police attacking 3 different sets of persons: walking down the street alone (presumably innocently), in their own front gardens, and journalists mid-broadcast. Is that true?

        Some of them are true with prove(s).

        Update: All of them are true with prove(s). Cederic had the final source. WARNING viewer discretion is highly advised.

        Journalists attacked mid-broadcast

        Journalists arrested mid-broadcast

        People walking down the street

        People walking driving down the street

        These however are not a good way to see the full picture.To see the full picture between the police, the riot and the protest, you might want to read through all of them.

        edit: I didn't downvote.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      What bothers me most is this one

      Black man on the ground under arrest. Officer runs up with stick, tries to force it into his hand and fails, puts the stick on the ground, forces the mans hand over the stick, officers punches mans hand (while he's held down on the ground) simulating hits.

      https://www.reddit.com/r/awfuleverything/comments/gv57ho/philadelphia_pd_putting_baton_in_black_mans_hand/

      What bothers me, is none of the policemen helping and watching has any problem at all with this faking of evidence. Not one of them objects.

      If there wasn't an unnoticed person in a car filming it, the case would have been of a black man hitting police with a stick, here look at the bruises on his hand where he held the stick. Look at the bruises on my hand where the stick hit me. "This morning on Fox and Friends, we speak to the brave officers who fought this vicious attacker".

      How many times has evidence been faked by this police department, that they all know what to do, and all look the other way when one of them does it???

      It's not the few bad apples, its the entire police department that's rogue.

      You think they stop at fake rioting? If they kill someone, the incentive to fake the evidence is even stronger, so no, they would not stop at faking stick attacks. They would fake evidence to cover killings too.

      1. Cederic Silver badge

        Re: What bothers me most is this one

        It's not the few bad apples, its the entire police department that's rogue.

        I agree that the behaviour you described is reprehensible, and entirely agree that the police should be arresting their own colleagues for things like that.

        I'm just not going to agree that the entire police department is rogue. I don't blame all black people for the idiots looting. I don't blame all white people for the idiots handing out bricks. I don't even blame all journalists for the 90% of them that are scum.

        That way lies hatred and prejudice. I think there's enough of that out there already.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: What bothers me most is this one

          What is the chance of picking 5 officers at random from that department and all of them being the rogue ones the rest being decent? Slim to none.

          @I don't blame all black people for the idiots looting

          If their job was to stop the looting, and yet they ignored it, you would.

          1. Cederic Silver badge

            Re: What bothers me most is this one

            Look at it another way. There are hundreds of thousands of law enforcement officers out on the streets at the moment in response to the protests and the riots.

            If they all acted the way those five officers did, State Governors would be sending in the National Guard against the police. Don't pretend all those Democrat Governors would be cheering on police brutality at that scale.

            Then there's the video footage of lots of police officers not attacking anybody. There are now years of bodycam footage showing police officers showing superhuman restraint and professionalism, and de-escalating difficult situations.

            The police must be made to obey the law. Police officers that shield wrongdoers among their ranks should be disciplined and penalised. The wrongdoers must be prosecuted. The rest of them? There's a lot of difficult work being done extremely well.

            1. This post has been deleted by its author

            2. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

              Re: What bothers me most is this one

              How much video is there of police shooting/beating/arresting other police officers who are committing crimes against protesters ?

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: What bothers me most is this one

          *Almost all police departments. UK included. How many times have I seen threads where its clear UK police brutality and all that happens, if they dont clear themselves on investigating themselves, is that they say they will review their training. No charges for clearly criminal behavior because its cop. The law needs to stop protecting them and make them accountable. However, both of my last MP's from both parties have said they couldn't give a toss.

          1. Cederic Silver badge

            Re: What bothers me most is this one

            I agree with you. I'm still not going to throw bricks at a passing policeman just because he's wearing a police uniform.

          2. J.G.Harston Silver badge

            Re: What bothers me most is this one

            The UK doesn't have police departments, they are independent authorities in their own stead. That could actually be a source of the failings of the US states' police system, the police are a department of local government and subject to all the failings of any corrupt local government. We are in danger of following them with the ridiculous Crime And Police Commissioners where the head of the local police force is now somebody dependant on a popularity contest to keep their job.

        3. goodjudge

          Re: What bothers me most is this one

          "I don't even blame all journalists for the 90% of them that are scum."

          What, even the journalists working for El Reg, Model Railway Collector, WWE Monthly, Homes & Gardens etc.? Which is, in my guess, a majority of most journalists out there. Or maybe you actually just mean the few who knowingly write gross distortions and clickbait headlines (with a final line in paragraph 18 that overturns the rest of the article which no-one will ever read but stops them from getting sued). I'm thinking of, for example, a former EU correspondent for The Spectator who admitted regularly making stuff up for shits'n'giggles and was eventually fired for it, or a columnist for The Telegraph who wrote two opinion pieces on a major event, wholeheartedly supporting both outcomes, because he didn't know how the event would turn out. I'm with you on that sort of journalist.

          1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

            Re: What bothers me most is this one

            >i'm with you on that sort of journalist.

            These sort of journalists should be fired and forced to take some less reputable job

      2. Dave314159ggggdffsdds Silver badge
        Stop

        Re: What bothers me most is this one

        The expression is 'a few bad apples _ruins the whole barrel_'.

        Police worldwide mostly share two traits: they're lazy and stupid. Not every single one, of course - some are driven, hardworking, evil powermad bastards.

        Expecting police to do work they're not absolutely forced to do is unrealistic. Expecting them to do it when it'll affect their coffee-cooler mates who they 'know' are innocent is exponentially more so.

    3. Dan 55 Silver badge
      Boffin

      Re: naughtiness on all sides

      There is no naughtiness on all sides, this is a false equivalence. You are mixing peaceful protesters with a bunch of opportunists and calling them one side, then when the police or National Guard on the other side attack peaceful protesters or just people going about their own business it doesn't matter because there were also opportunists. It also fails to take into account years of "naughtiness" from the police to get to this point.

      It is also straight out of the Trump playbook, if you remember when he said that there were "very fine people, on both sides" and "hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides" over Charlottesville. It could be argued that it's technically correct, and yet it's complete nonsense.

      Also after seeing things like the National Guard firing at residential areas I think the US is dangerously close to the edge. It only needs a small push to move from constant false rhetoric and the army firing on their own citizens to cancelling elections. Once there, how do you find your way back out of that?

      I really do think an authoritarian such as Trump who can't stand losing surrounded by sycophantic yes-men that he's put in place could go there. All because of the nonsense rhetoric that he's whipped up over the past four years hasn't been challenged the way it should have been and the "bunker boy" taunt that pushed him over the edge.

      1. Cederic Silver badge

        Re: naughtiness on all sides

        You are mixing peaceful protesters with a bunch of opportunists and calling them one side

        Given I explicitly differentiated between peaceful protesters (who I supported) and rioters/looters (who I condemned) I think you're being intentionally obtuse.

        1. Dan 55 Silver badge

          Re: naughtiness on all sides

          What "naughtiness" have peaceful protesters done? What naughtiness have people just going about their daily lives done?

          None whatsoever. There is no "naughtiness on their side" but you're tarring them with the same brush because the title is "naughtiness on all sides".

          Why? Only you would know. At the very least, your title is completely wrong.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: naughtiness on all sides

        Those are police firing , they are following the national guard vehicle

    4. sabroni Silver badge

      Re: not the colour of the people doing them.

      Asking me not to mention colour after white police killed another black man?

      Why not?

      1. Cederic Silver badge

        Re: not the colour of the people doing them.

        Because you didn't speak out when a black Minneapolis policeman killed a white woman in 2017.

        Because you didn't speak out when Tony Timpa was choked to death by the police.

        Because you're making this a race issue when it isn't, and I don't agree with inciting racial divisiveness.

        1. Dan 55 Silver badge

          Re: not the colour of the people doing them.

          I can only assume a goldfish with a seven-second attention span and no memory covering decades would agree that it's not a race issue, everyone else would beg to differ.

        2. sabroni Silver badge

          Re: not the colour of the people doing them.

          Yeah, nice work finding a couple of incidences to support your point.

          You had to go back to 2017 to find an example of black on white police violence. But still you claim i shouldn't bring race into it.

          I'm not the one killing all the black people.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: not the colour of the people doing them.

            What does the data say about who is killing whom?

            https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-2018/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-6.xls

            In 2018, there were 2,925 Black or African American murder victims. In 2,600 cases the offenders were Black or African American and in 234 cases they were white.

            In 2018, there were 3,315 White murder victims. In 2,677 cases the offenders were White and in 514 cases they were Black or African American.

            1. Outski

              Re: not the colour of the people doing them.

              Do thosee stats include the many cases where a white-on-black suspect was completely exonerated?

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: not the colour of the people doing them.

                The Cederic should only post:

                "All Lives Matter".

                That would clear up all fog.

                Read carefully, my opinion is "Black Lives Matter".

          2. Cederic Silver badge

            Re: not the colour of the people doing them.

            The 2017 incident is relevant not because it's the most recent police killing of a white person (trust me, it's not even close) but because it was the same police department in the same city that were involved in the George Floyd case.

            I'm glad to hear that you're not killing "all the black people". Good work, keep it up.

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: not the colour of the people doing them.

          It IS a race issue, it has been since American slavery.

          Mainly by Europeans, whom they now call Caucasian, go figure.

          African Americans

          Asian Americans

          Native Americans (:= the true (North)Americans)

          Caucasian := European Americans

    5. teknopaul

      Re: naughtiness on all sides

      "But at no point in any of this have I needed to mention the colour of anybody's skin. "

      Being colour blind is generally noble, but it didn't slip anyone else's attention that the knee was white, and the neck was black.

      You need to be careful.

      Until everyone is happily colourblind, you still need to highlight action that appears racist: in the US in 2020, it may not be, but it probably is.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Confused

    With these recent cases, I'm really confused who I should support, even more so with twitter now.

    My core belief is simple:

    Everyone (regardless of race, skin colour etc) should be free to live their life as they chose, so long as those decisions don't cause negative harm upon everyone else and information should be free (educational and news) .

    In addition any of form of oppression is not acceptable (such as spying, removal of information or anti-women sharia law)

    ...

    So here's where it gets complicated, clearly this man was killed unjustly and clearly the police in this case should not be allowed to get away with this.

    So on one hand, I believe this should be public knowledge, there is no way the police can get away with this.

    But on the other hand, false information about events or otherwise which simply stur anger and have no true basis to them harm the community as a whole, and so shouldn't be accepted or shown, as without doubt there are many police workers who are just regular and good people.

    Absolutely there are some bad people in the police, and life overall, but if we try to censor even one opinion, shouldn't we censor all? If you chose only one side of a story to support and censor, then you are not allowing people to chose their own decisions. On the other hand, if you allow false information then it can cause false and bad decisions.

    But the problem is if you make the decision for people without showing them everything, then you become the oppressor.

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge
      Headmaster

      Re: Confused

      I believe Germany struggled with the same problem before WW2 (Weimar Republic) but they certainly don't struggle with it now. But would anyone like to argue that modern-day Germany isn't a democracy or is oppressive?

      Icon is a history teacher.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Confused

      U sureley R confused. And not slightly.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    108,000 killed by Antifa

    That the first instance of the shortened name 'Antifa' is here, Breitbart, November 25 2016 just after Trump got elected:

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2016/11/25/german-city-accused-of-funding-left-wing-extremists/

    So Breitbart originated the name. It's a false flag operation.

    Whether a group in a protest is labelled as 'Antifa' or not, defends on whether Breitbart or Fox News decides to label them 'Antifa'. So the people who named and control Antifa are Breitbart and Fox News. They are the 'Bin Laden' figure declaring that such-and-such an anti-racists group is Antifa or not.

    You're looking at a false flag operation here. Twitter may have removed this account, but Facebook is a hive of false flag operations and the rest of the web is too.

    They're a manufactured bogey man. Trump hyped the bogey. Be afraid of the bogey man, because he's coming for you next!

    Just a reminder that the biggest killer of Republicans is still Corona Virus, 108,000 official dead. So when Trump claims "Antifa riots stopped me saving their lives, the poor Americans, I stand with Doctors and Nurses, and the fine military men in condemning the deaths caused by the 'Antifa-virus' as I like to call it".... that's him saying his bogeyman preventing him from doing his job competently.

    And when Republican apologists like Ted Cruz, and Matt Gaetz repeat the lies, see how weak they are? Trump could grab their daughters by the pussy, while police crush their necks for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, till she was dead and they would be on Fox and Friends,. saying "but my daughter *could* breathe, I could hear here gasps, so was always a bit sickly, she would have died anyway".

    1. Cederic Silver badge

      Re: 108,000 killed by Antifa

      I would ignore this propaganda but people are voting you up.

      "The antifa movement began in the 1960s in Europe, and had reached the US by the end of the 1970s"

      -- https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounders/who-are-antifa

      1. MiguelC Silver badge

        Re: 108,000 killed by Antifa

        According to The Oxford Dictionary's Word of the Year 2017 Shortlist, it only became relevant that year.

        "The term Antifa has emerged from relative obscurity to become an established part of the English lexicon over the course of 2017, with media attention to the controversial brand of radical leftism now a regular feature in reports on activism across the political spectrum."

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Chris Tomlinson

          You can go better than that, use Google's time limited search tool and go see the where it makes the jump and gets shortened from the Germans sites various forms (e.g. Antifa-Aufrufen ) and its that Breitbart article there.

          Chris Tomlinson I assume speaks German which is how it made the leap from German and was anglicized.

          Even here he's using it as abbreviation rather than its literal label as a organization.

          November 25th, shortly after Trump got elected.

          1. Cederic Silver badge

            Re: Chris Tomlinson

            I'm assuming from the AC posting that this is intentional misinformation.

            Look at when these twitter accounts were created:

            https://twitter.com/antifacanada?lang=en

            https://twitter.com/AKAntifaAachen

            https://twitter.com/antifahamm

            https://twitter.com/antifa_ak_koeln

            https://twitter.com/antifaintl?lang=en

            https://twitter.com/RoseCityAntifa

            I could go on, but I'm bored. It's very obvious that Antifa predates Trump's time in politics.

            Of course, if Antifa was a right-wing conspiracy then the Democrats and all of the people that hate right wing politics would be celebrating the idea of declaring it a terrorist organisation. Sorry, we're just not buying it.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Canada

              It does seem to be an abbreviation on Twitter they've used extensively (also outside of Germany).

      2. Ordinary Donkey

        Re: 108,000 killed by Antifa

        It's hard not to notice, though, that the American Antifa are overwhelmingly white.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 108,000 killed by Antifa

      And all US domestic terrorist attacks over the last few years (and the majority the last 10 years) have been white right wing extremists.

      1. Cederic Silver badge

        Re: 108,000 killed by Antifa

        I keep getting downvoted for posting simple facts, so I'm expecting this one to get voted down too.

        All US domestic terrorist attacks in the last few years include:

        -- https://edition.cnn.com/2019/12/18/politics/domestic-terrorism-federal-crime/index.html

        -- https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-52713702

        -- https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/31/nyregion/police-shooting-lower-manhattan.html

        The perpetrators of those attacks don't look like white right wing extremists to me.

        There are also countless cases of violence being deployed to pursue political objectives by people with very 'left wing' aims and by people that would not be described as 'white'.

        Perhaps you'd like to join me in condemning all terrorist attacks, irrespective of the skin colour of the terrorists.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 108,000 killed by Antifa

      Mail Trump the meme

      WuHAnTiFa virus

  5. Dan 55 Silver badge

    The campaign also allegedly used hacked legitimate accounts to push past Twitter’s monitoring systems. That was a riskier proposition – because people tend to notice when their own account suddenly starts tweeting messages they didn’t write

    Not if they left Twitter ages ago. You can usually tell when it happens, messages that sound like they came from a normal person peter out, then a few months later they suddenly re-appear, only it's politics all day every day.

  6. lglethal Silver badge
    Go

    Twitter could pretty easily prevent this...

    Twitter could pretty easily prevent the explosion of a hashtag, if they simply put limits on what accounts it counts, when determining whats a popular tag. For example, any account created in the last month thats starts retweeting a tag doesnt count towards whether its a popular tag or not. That would stop the mass creation of accounts that are being used to amplify a message. Accounts that have been dormant for more than a month (no posts), no longer count. That would stop the take over of legitimate but unused accounts from having an effect.

    These changes are easy to make and would mean that any attempt to get a fake hashtag circulating would require months of planning. And hopefully, someone setting up tonnes of accounts and holding them in readiness for such a thing should be identifiable before they can be put into effect.

    Not hard changes to make, but does Twitter have the stomach to try and do something? We'll wait and see i guess...

    1. hoola Silver badge

      Re: Twitter could pretty easily prevent this...

      Twitter, Facebook and all the other Social Media platforms have a responsibility here. The issue is the speed with which information (in the loosest sense) is propagated.

      These exacerbate this situation as all the professional trouble makers now join in and so the situation is inflamed.

      Looting and destruction now appears to be an acceptable addition to a demonstration. Just look at what happened in the UK a few years ago with riots and then evacuated houses being looted.

      Lawless behaviour is increasing everywhere and the core perpetrators are largely untracable.

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: Twitter could pretty easily prevent this...

        Yes there was so much less police violence when the news came from NBC and CBS

  7. ortunk
    Devil

    yeah maybe everyone should be KYC'd and IDs reported in a global database with known IPs, device IDs and etc...

  8. iron Silver badge

    > “The FBI is seeking information and digital media depicting individuals inciting violence during First Amendment protected peaceful demonstrations,”

    Their first port of call should be the current tennant at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. He has done as much to incite violence as anyone.

    1. onemark03

      ... First Amendment protected peaceful demonstrations ...

      In a country whose origins are based on a revolution, I find it gigantically ironic that peaceful protesters (I exclude all the bad actors) risk possible investigation by various law enforcement authorities for peacefully exercising their democratic right to protest and dissent. It is heartening that some police are joining their protests but will this be enough?

      Just a thought.

      Oh, right, it's (presidential) election year in the US. How could I have forgotten?

  9. Buzzword

    "white supremacists posing as anti-fascists"

    How can they tell?

    "The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."

    1. anonanonanon

      Re: "white supremacists posing as anti-fascists"

      Easily

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "white supremacists posing as anti-fascists"

      >How can they tell?

      The white guys making Nazi salutes is a good clue

  10. J.G.Harston Silver badge

    "Antifa" WTH's that? Palistinian terrorists innit?

    They even pronounce it AN-TEEFA. What the hell's a teefa, and why are you preceding it with /an/ instead of /a/? If you're speaking English use bloody English. If you're an anti-fascist organisation, call yourself something like antifash or antifascist, and damn well pronounce it ANTI-something.

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