WEBVTT - Can Trump Be Prosecuted for Inciting the Capitol Riot? 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.920 This is what President Trump said in a video message 0:00:02.920 --> 0:00:07.200 on Wednesday. Mob violence goes against everything I believe in 0:00:07.800 --> 0:00:12.280 and everything our movement stands for. No true supporter of 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:16.680 mind could ever endorse political violence. And this is what 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:20.040 Trump said at a rally on January six, before a 0:00:20.040 --> 0:00:24.840 mob of pro Trump supporters stormed the capital. Our country 0:00:24.840 --> 0:00:28.960 has had enough. We will not take it anymore. And 0:00:29.040 --> 0:00:33.080 that's what this is all about. You. We're going to 0:00:34.400 --> 0:00:38.680 walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. I love Pennsylvania Avenue, and we're 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:43.040 going to the Capitol because you'll never take back our 0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:46.199 country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:50.000 have to be strong. Can Trump be prosecuted for that 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:53.639 inflammatory speech urging the crowd to go to the capital 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:57.360 and demand legislator's address his baseless claims of voter fraud? 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:00.320 Joining me as Sharene SNAr, a professor at for the 0:01:00.360 --> 0:01:03.760 Law School who studies the legal treatment of political violence, 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:08.120 Let's start with the broad question first, Can President Trump 0:01:08.120 --> 0:01:12.039 be prosecuted for inciting the riot? So the standard for 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:17.280 incitement is a high standard under criminal law. And you 0:01:17.319 --> 0:01:18.760 know the first thing I would say is that we 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:23.040 should separate out the criminal prosecution question from the question 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:27.959 of whether he incited the riot in a broader moral 0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:32.919 or political sense, or even in terms of the impeachment 0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:36.720 proceedings against him, but in terms of a criminal prosecution, 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:41.399 because of a nine Supreme Court decision in a case 0:01:41.440 --> 0:01:46.800 called Brandenburg the Ohio, the standard for prosecuting somebody for 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:50.840 advocacy of violence is high. You have to show both 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:56.400 that their speech was intended to produce imminent lawless action 0:01:56.680 --> 0:01:59.560 and that it was likely to produce that kind of action. 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:03.160 So there are questions about whether what the president said 0:02:03.320 --> 0:02:05.440 in the context in which he said it could meet 0:02:05.440 --> 0:02:07.880 that standard. So could a case be made out here? 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:10.760 I think there's a case to be made, in part 0:02:10.840 --> 0:02:13.399 not just from the words, but also from the context 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:16.359 in which he made the comments that he did at 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:20.040 the rally immediately proceeding the invasion of the capital. And 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:22.359 so it's not just the language is taking back our 0:02:22.400 --> 0:02:25.959 country strings and so forth, but also the fact that 0:02:26.080 --> 0:02:29.399 the crowd that he was speaking to were shouting fight 0:02:29.520 --> 0:02:32.720 for Trump, Fight for Trump at the time. But it 0:02:32.800 --> 0:02:37.080 will also rest on facts we don't fully know right now. So, 0:02:37.160 --> 0:02:40.200 for instance, the more it can be shown that the 0:02:40.240 --> 0:02:44.760 president had knowledge that groups were planning of an invasion 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:47.120 of the capital in the days before the attack, or 0:02:47.240 --> 0:02:48.960 you know that they were already groups like the Proud 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:51.919 Boys in DC they're fighting with police on the eve 0:02:51.960 --> 0:02:55.480 of the attacks, then it could strengthen the case that 0:02:55.560 --> 0:03:00.840 he intended violence to result from his remarks. In investigation, 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:04.359 a grand jury could subpoena internal White House documents and 0:03:04.440 --> 0:03:08.880 even question White House aids to find out what Trump 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:12.359 said or new prior to the riot. Would that help 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:15.880 determine his intent? If it emerges from that that he 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:21.040 had a strong knowledge of the plans of certain groups 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:22.920 that we're coming to d C to be part of 0:03:22.960 --> 0:03:27.360 the protest, then that can help show that what he 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:31.880 intended by, you know, asking followers to fight for him 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:33.840 and to be strong, you know, with more than just 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:37.680 people protests. How likely is it that a president or 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:40.520 a former president, because we assume that this is going 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:44.280 to be handled by the Justice Department under Joe Biden, 0:03:44.640 --> 0:03:48.880 that a former president would be prosecuted. That's hard to 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:52.200 say because it is the unprecedented. But so much of 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:56.360 what we are seeing now is is unprecedented, and there's 0:03:56.360 --> 0:04:00.520 not a pattern or historical example. I mean, recent times 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:02.960 that we can draw, and so I think I'd rather 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:06.480 not speculate about the likelihood of prosecution. Some of it 0:04:06.720 --> 0:04:10.360 turns on the decision making by his attorneys and turns 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:12.920 on the political context. So there's a lot that could 0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:15.400 go into that kind of decision. Could some of the 0:04:15.480 --> 0:04:20.960 other speakers at the rally be prosecuted, for example, Rudy Giuliani, 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:25.760 Trump's personal attorney, let's have trial by combat. So the 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:29.040 words of Giuliani that really stand out are the reference 0:04:29.080 --> 0:04:33.839 to trial by combat. He can still argue that what 0:04:34.240 --> 0:04:36.520 he meant by that, and in the context of the sentence, 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:40.400 it's actually not entirely clear. He could argue that that 0:04:40.520 --> 0:04:44.120 was not a reference to literal physical combat, um, but 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:46.600 a reference to combat in the same way that we 0:04:47.200 --> 0:04:51.279 often use the word fight to mean a struggle. You know, 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:55.240 combat certainly does have a more militaristic connotation even than 0:04:55.440 --> 0:04:58.159 than fight. But there is a defense there that the 0:04:58.200 --> 0:05:01.279 intent was not literally in citing people to break down 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:03.479 the doors of the capital. What did that charges of 0:05:03.560 --> 0:05:11.240 seditious conspiracy. Seditious conspiracy requires people agreeing either to overthrow 0:05:11.279 --> 0:05:16.320 the government or opposed federal authority by force, including preventing 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:19.800 the execution of federal law. And so the argument I 0:05:19.839 --> 0:05:23.680 suppose would be that if the president agreed to use 0:05:23.920 --> 0:05:27.279 force to prevent a certification of the Electoral College votes, 0:05:27.560 --> 0:05:32.040 that would amount to interrupting a lawful federal process in 0:05:32.120 --> 0:05:35.560 terms of the statute. But you would have to show 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:40.600 more than the fact that the president wanted the certification 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:44.400 not to happen. You would have to show some agreement 0:05:44.720 --> 0:05:49.200 with others to impede that process through force. And so again, 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:52.080 it's not just engaging in a series of actions to 0:05:52.120 --> 0:05:55.320 be legitimize the election, or even to invite right wing 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:59.960 support right wing militants, but specifically to prevent a certification 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:04.839 through force. So seditious conspiracy that might be a charge 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:11.520 that's better suited to the rioters themselves. I think certainly 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:15.479 the conduct of some of the rioters um falls within 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:18.839 that description. But I also think we need to be 0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:24.480 careful of using seditious conspiracy charges. And um that's because 0:06:24.560 --> 0:06:27.760 we do have a long history of using sedition laws 0:06:27.760 --> 0:06:31.960 to suppress descent descent, and while the people who invaded 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:35.440 a capital were not engaging in merely peaceful protests, we 0:06:35.480 --> 0:06:39.120 should be careful about normalizing a framework UM that is 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:43.080 connected to the suppression of ideas and that um is 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:49.600 likely to uh to perhaps have its strongest effect on 0:06:49.600 --> 0:06:52.160 on others. And you know, I would note in that 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:54.320 context that it was just a few months back that 0:06:54.360 --> 0:06:58.560 the Attorney General was suggesting using sedition conspiracy charges against 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:03.240 people in the police protests. UM. And you know, in 0:07:03.279 --> 0:07:06.080 the past, the successful uses of that charge have been 0:07:06.120 --> 0:07:12.880 against Puerto Rican nationalist, radical anarchists, Muslims. The government has 0:07:12.920 --> 0:07:16.040 tried to use that charge against white supremacists and at 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:18.679 least a couple of high profile cases over the past 0:07:19.040 --> 0:07:23.760 thirty forty years UM, but UH, multiple prosecutions ended in 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:26.680 dismissal of charges or acquittal. UM. So we do need 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:29.840 to be careful about the the longer term and more 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:34.520 systemic consequences of any expanded use of position charges. That 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:38.720 brings me to the question of of domestic terrorism. And 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:42.800 many people are saying, well, the FBI couldn't investigate here 0:07:43.400 --> 0:07:47.720 because they can investigate for domestic terrorism unless the case 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:51.880 has been opened. So I think there's some misinformation about 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:56.560 the scope of federal authority of including to to launch 0:07:56.600 --> 0:08:01.840 investigations and the FBI guideline for investigations, which is Essentially, 0:08:01.960 --> 0:08:04.600 the UM you know, the closest thing to a charter 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:09.800 or framework for for their authority, UH, has a fairly 0:08:09.920 --> 0:08:16.200 low standard when it comes to initiating investigations UM. In 0:08:16.240 --> 0:08:20.120 the context of of speech. UM. So, for instance, the 0:08:20.280 --> 0:08:26.640 FBI can open an assessment into potential illegal activity without 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:33.160 having to show any particular factual basis for suspicions. So, 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:37.040 and that's assessment. That's a form of investigative authority that 0:08:37.080 --> 0:08:39.880 allows the FBI to look at social media posts and 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:44.079 even send out informants um to to target particular individuals. UM. 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:47.720 So that's the set of powers that is available to 0:08:47.760 --> 0:08:51.199 the FBI, even in the absence of a specific factual 0:08:52.080 --> 0:08:55.520 basis a predication we're thinking that an individual is about 0:08:55.559 --> 0:08:59.120 to engage in or in violence um. And Similarly, there 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:01.600 is a restriction UM in the sense that the FBI 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:07.840 is not supposed to engage investigations solely on account of speech. 0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:11.720 But the way that the FBI interprets that is it's 0:09:11.760 --> 0:09:15.640 not solely on account of speech if there is a 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:20.800 concern that a group is interested in violence. So that UH, 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:23.520 you know, those investigative authorities are already quite broad, and 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:28.319 the lack of a domestic terrorism Uh, you know, process 0:09:28.320 --> 0:09:32.680 for designating organizations, you know as domestic charish organizations is 0:09:32.720 --> 0:09:36.040 not an impediment to that already very large authority. So 0:09:36.720 --> 0:09:40.679 is there a difference between the act itself, what we 0:09:40.800 --> 0:09:45.120 saw that he did, and whether or not the proof 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:48.760 of intent is there? Yeah, Well, I think it's one 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:52.720 thing to say that the president bears moral and political 0:09:52.760 --> 0:09:56.560 responsibility for instigating the violence. There's no question in my 0:09:56.679 --> 0:09:59.160 mind that the comments made not just at the day 0:09:59.160 --> 0:10:01.760 of the rally, but in the preceding months, and you know, 0:10:01.800 --> 0:10:05.560 for that matter, the entire campaign of delegitimizing the election. 0:10:06.120 --> 0:10:10.600 Um that the president bears responsibility for what unfolded. But 0:10:10.960 --> 0:10:15.079 that's a separate question from whether the intent required by this, 0:10:15.400 --> 0:10:19.440 you know, the constitutional tests of it isn't. The Senator 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:24.840 Dick Durbin plans to reintroduce a domestic terrorism bill after 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:29.240 the inauguration. Tell me what your opinion is of the 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:33.520 need for domestic terrorism bill. I think if there's legislation 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:39.480 that is intended to increase awareness and information as to 0:10:39.559 --> 0:10:42.400 how the government has responded domestic terrorism. So some of 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:47.600 the bills are primarily about understanding the law enforcement response 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:53.000 for example, UM. And so that's that's one thing. But 0:10:53.240 --> 0:10:56.680 if the bill is intended, and some of the bills, 0:10:56.800 --> 0:10:59.199 new domestic terrorism bills that have been introduced over the 0:10:59.280 --> 0:11:04.560 last year so are intended to create a new, broad, 0:11:04.679 --> 0:11:09.600 federal domestic terrorism criminal charge. And my view of that 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:14.520 is both that the charge wouldn't be necessary because there 0:11:14.559 --> 0:11:19.400 are numerous uh criminal charges that can already be brought 0:11:20.040 --> 0:11:25.360 to prosecute domestic terrorism, but also that creating a new 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:30.440 charge UM has problems. And you know, again the context 0:11:30.480 --> 0:11:35.600 here is that terrorism and security laws have you've been 0:11:35.679 --> 0:11:39.840 used most vigorously against people of color and those who 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:45.360 challenge the prevailing racial and socio economic order. So you 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:48.240 might think you're aiming at white supremacists by creating a 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:52.640 new charge, UM, But that same charge ends up then 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:58.200 being deployed against folks protesting police brutality, or indigenous protesters 0:11:58.760 --> 0:12:02.040 responding to oil pipeline in their communities and and things 0:12:02.080 --> 0:12:06.560 of that sort. So there's a danger in creating broad 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:09.439 new terrorism charges. And if that's the nature of a 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:15.640 domestic terrorism proposal, that's problematics. Do you think that the 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:21.280 investigations into domestic terrorism since nine eleven to date, do 0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:23.880 you think a lot of them have gone too far 0:12:24.080 --> 0:12:28.760 or gone astray. Well, they're two separate but related issues. 0:12:28.880 --> 0:12:34.120 So on the one hand, the FBI has not sufficiently 0:12:34.320 --> 0:12:40.840 prioritized investigations into white supremacists violence, and not just the FBI, 0:12:40.920 --> 0:12:46.000 but the security agencies more broadly failed to consider it 0:12:46.200 --> 0:12:48.319 a threat for a very long time, you know, when 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:51.800 they sort of relatedly recognized it as a threat. Um, 0:12:51.880 --> 0:12:55.599 you know, as after years of some of these organizations 0:12:55.800 --> 0:13:00.320 UM already um, you know, working for many it's kind 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:03.240 of below the radar. So there's been on the one hand, 0:13:03.240 --> 0:13:06.880 of failure to prioritize white supremacists violence. You know. On 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:09.480 the other hand, we've seen that even with respect to 0:13:09.520 --> 0:13:13.000 domestic groups that have absolutely no international time UM, there 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:17.640 have been concerns about intrusive FBI investigations. So in two 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:21.599 thousands ten, the Justice Department Inspector General, which is a 0:13:21.640 --> 0:13:27.240 watchdog agency within the Department UH published a review where 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:32.200 it looked at UH FBI investigations of anti war groups, 0:13:32.400 --> 0:13:35.720 of animals rights, environmental organizations, and other groups on the left, 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:40.000 and it found that in some of those investigations there 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:44.040 has been a very very thin basis for launching the investigation, 0:13:44.080 --> 0:13:47.559 and that those investigations continued, um, even when it became 0:13:47.559 --> 0:13:49.640 apparent that people were not planning any um, you know, 0:13:49.640 --> 0:13:54.800 anything illegal. Um. So there's good reason to be concerned 0:13:54.920 --> 0:13:58.920 about investigations. And and I don't think that that that's 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:06.240 concerned uh to segregate domestic from international terrorism. In other words, Uh, 0:14:06.440 --> 0:14:12.480 the FBI's investigations have been broad, um and concerning with 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:18.480 respect both too uh perceived Muslim threats as well as 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:24.080 with respect to various left wings um you know stories. 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:28.560 You know, the FBI you know investigative report on black 0:14:28.680 --> 0:14:31.440 identity extremists um from a couple of years ago being 0:14:31.680 --> 0:14:34.360 kind of one example of the very broad framing of 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:38.880 protests and descent when it comes from say, racial sources protesters, 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:41.720 um uh the you know. But on the other hand, 0:14:41.800 --> 0:14:45.440 those concerns are paired with a concern that the FBI 0:14:45.560 --> 0:14:49.680 hasn't provided sufficient attention into white supremacists, which they now 0:14:49.720 --> 0:14:55.440 be lately recognized as the most significant threats domestically. Thanks 0:14:55.440 --> 0:14:58.800 for being on the Bloomberg Law Show. That's Sharene SNAr, 0:14:58.960 --> 0:15:01.840 professor at stamp In Law School who studies the legal 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:06.880 treatment of political violence, even Before last week's violence at 0:15:06.880 --> 0:15:10.600 the Capitol, lawmakers and civil rights advocates had been pressuring 0:15:10.720 --> 0:15:14.080 social media platforms to crack down on posts that encourage 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:17.760 violence or hatred. While regulators in Europe have passed laws 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:20.920 finding companies that failed to act on hate speech, the 0:15:21.040 --> 0:15:24.840 US has largely left regulation to the companies. After the violence, 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:28.880 Twitter suspended President Trump's account permanently due to the quote 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:33.160 risk of further incitement of violence. Facebook and Instagram, which 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:36.360 it owns, has suspended Trump until at least the January 0:15:36.440 --> 0:15:40.520 twenty inauguration of President elect Joe Biden, arguing that Trump 0:15:40.560 --> 0:15:43.440 intended to use his time left in office to undermine 0:15:43.480 --> 0:15:47.000 the peaceful transition of power. Joining me is Snanaorall, a 0:15:47.080 --> 0:15:49.360 professor at m I T and director of the m 0:15:49.400 --> 0:15:52.600 I T Initiative on the Digital Economy. His new book 0:15:52.680 --> 0:15:56.600 is called The Hype Machine. What did social media tell 0:15:56.680 --> 0:16:01.080 you about the Capital riots? Before last when day? Well, 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:04.680 there was a lot of chatter on social media about 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:08.640 you know, meeting for a march, about storming the Capitol. 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:12.120 There was a lot of q and on chatter about 0:16:12.240 --> 0:16:16.480 taking the capital, about fighting. You know, a lot of 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:20.440 it is done in the form of allusion you alluding 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:26.040 to violence. Sometimes it's quite explicit. Uh, there was a 0:16:26.040 --> 0:16:31.640 lot of violent chatter on parlor Um and even on 0:16:31.720 --> 0:16:36.520 other more mainstream social media. There was there were clear indications. 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:42.040 Did the authorities just miss it or did they misinterpret it? 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:45.360 It's a very good question. I think the question as 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:49.920 to why the FBI, the Capitol Police, Homeland Security and 0:16:49.960 --> 0:16:53.320 so on, we're not more prepared on Wednesday is a 0:16:53.480 --> 0:16:58.040 very important open question because I think that uh, you know, 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:01.040 all of the signs were there in all of the 0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:05.320 known channels, and it would be it's very hard for 0:17:05.320 --> 0:17:09.160 me to believe that it was just missed, uh for 0:17:09.200 --> 0:17:13.160 some reason. There now appears to be some reports that 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:19.040 the FBI did issue some warnings before the attack, right, 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:22.040 So so it's hard for me to understand where the 0:17:22.040 --> 0:17:26.800 communication failure happened. Because there's also reports that the d 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:30.119 D and other authorities in the National Guard offered assistance 0:17:30.160 --> 0:17:34.720 and it was declined multiple times. The information assistance in 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:39.359 terms of saying, hey, we're seeing chatter, uh, you should 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:43.679 be more prepared, and or the actual physical um, you know, 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:50.280 assistance of of you know, more personnel, how that was 0:17:50.440 --> 0:17:54.199 lost in the channing communication. I don't know, but I 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:58.920 think a full investigation is warranted because given the amount 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:06.199 of chatter in advance, it was surprising to see the 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:10.680 Capitol not prepared for what happened on Wednesday. Now we're 0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:14.080 getting a lot of warnings about what might happen on 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:19.920 inauguration Day. What are you seeing now on social media? Well, 0:18:19.960 --> 0:18:24.400 I think that there are ample warnings that continue that 0:18:24.680 --> 0:18:29.200 things may happen on the on the and on the 0:18:29.320 --> 0:18:36.040 twentie and I would be very surprised if the inauguration 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:39.520 we're not more prepared than the Capitol on Wednesday. Um, 0:18:40.880 --> 0:18:45.280 there is no excuse for not being prepared on inauguration 0:18:45.359 --> 0:18:49.120 Day and in fact in the next several days leading 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:51.919 up to the inauguration. Given the amount of attention that 0:18:52.000 --> 0:18:54.159 has been brought to this, and given the amount of 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:58.639 conversation that happens on social media about about this, I 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:05.200 should add that there's also talk of additional uh. I 0:19:05.240 --> 0:19:08.919 guess you could call them threats against state capitals, and 0:19:08.960 --> 0:19:12.000 so this isn't limited to Washington, d C. But needs 0:19:12.040 --> 0:19:15.359 to be taken seriously across the country. Is it one group, 0:19:15.720 --> 0:19:18.359 is it a lot of groups? I mean, how many 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:22.080 actors are there here? Well, I think that it's it's 0:19:22.119 --> 0:19:25.320 difficult to say. There are a lot of bill defined 0:19:25.880 --> 0:19:30.639 groups and or people who are unaffiliated that are privy 0:19:30.720 --> 0:19:33.879 to information that are being put out by groups. I 0:19:33.880 --> 0:19:36.520 think one group that obviously comes to mind is q 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:41.480 and on. Obviously has been banned by Facebook, and Facebook 0:19:41.520 --> 0:19:45.240 started cleaning out to and on content prior even to 0:19:45.320 --> 0:19:49.400 the election, but they continue to have a voice on 0:19:49.520 --> 0:19:53.680 parlor and in other places. Before Parlor was a home 0:19:53.720 --> 0:19:56.440 for this kind of communications, four chan and eight chan 0:19:56.640 --> 0:20:01.160 were channels where you could find this type of content. 0:20:01.720 --> 0:20:07.680 So q and on is one loosely organized group UM 0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:12.800 that is not really a formal organization so much as 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:16.720 a set of ideals and ideas that are spread on 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:21.120 social media and elsewhere that have um gained a lot 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:25.000 of traction in recent years. You've written that false news 0:20:25.040 --> 0:20:29.240 travels farther and faster and more broadly than the truth online. 0:20:29.640 --> 0:20:32.919 Explain what you mean by that. Yeah, So, we published 0:20:33.119 --> 0:20:37.680 a ten year study on the cover of Science magazine 0:20:37.960 --> 0:20:41.840 in March that studied all of the true and false 0:20:42.000 --> 0:20:45.639 verified news stories that had ever spread on Twitter in 0:20:45.680 --> 0:20:48.560 those ten years, and what we found was that the 0:20:48.680 --> 0:20:52.680 false news traveled farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than 0:20:52.720 --> 0:20:55.840 the truth in every category of information that we studied, 0:20:56.240 --> 0:21:00.239 and that false political news was especially viral. And so 0:21:00.640 --> 0:21:06.119 that presents an important challenge because false narratives can create 0:21:06.200 --> 0:21:09.560 false beliefs and people can act on those false beliefs 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:15.879 uh and debunking of that falsity rarely catches up to 0:21:16.040 --> 0:21:21.400 the lie. And therefore, if you have false narratives, for instance, 0:21:21.440 --> 0:21:27.760 around election integrity or fraud during the election, uh, and 0:21:27.840 --> 0:21:31.119 if you use those narratives to convince people that the 0:21:31.160 --> 0:21:34.200 election was stolen and that they must quote unquote fight, 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:40.160 that that can really rile people up and create the 0:21:40.240 --> 0:21:43.360 types of outcomes that we saw on Wednesday. Why does 0:21:43.400 --> 0:21:48.280 the false news travel so fast and is accepted so readily? 0:21:49.440 --> 0:21:52.919 So we had a number of hypotheses. At first, we 0:21:53.000 --> 0:21:57.639 thought that, well, maybe false news spreaders have more followers, 0:21:57.800 --> 0:22:00.000 or maybe they follow more people, or maybe there are 0:22:00.280 --> 0:22:04.480 more often verified accounts, or they've been on Twitter longer, etcetera. 0:22:04.520 --> 0:22:07.160 And we checked each one of these in turn, and 0:22:07.320 --> 0:22:11.359 the opposite was true. False news spreaters have fewer followers followed, 0:22:11.400 --> 0:22:14.159 fewer people, have been on Twitter for less time. Or 0:22:14.240 --> 0:22:17.040 less often verified and so on, and so we had 0:22:17.080 --> 0:22:19.280 to come up with other explanations. And what we looked 0:22:19.320 --> 0:22:24.480 at was the emotional content and the novelty of the information. 0:22:24.680 --> 0:22:28.320 And what we found was that false news is shocking, 0:22:28.960 --> 0:22:33.640 it's novel. And when you read the cognitive science literature, 0:22:33.840 --> 0:22:37.640 you find that human attention is drawn to novelty things 0:22:37.640 --> 0:22:40.880 that are new in the environment because that's what's going 0:22:40.920 --> 0:22:43.600 to update our beliefs about the state of the world. 0:22:43.680 --> 0:22:46.200 And when you read the sociology literature, what you find 0:22:46.280 --> 0:22:49.719 is that we gain in status when we share novel 0:22:49.760 --> 0:22:53.320 information because we're seen as being in the know or 0:22:53.359 --> 0:22:57.680 having access to inside information quote unquote, and so we 0:22:57.760 --> 0:23:00.760 tend to have And when we look that the emotions, 0:23:00.800 --> 0:23:04.760 we found that the false news was blood boiling, it 0:23:04.840 --> 0:23:08.920 was anger inducing, it was shocking, it was disgusting, stallacious, 0:23:09.640 --> 0:23:13.240 and that gets our attention and then we feel the 0:23:13.359 --> 0:23:16.639 knee jerk urge to share it, and that's what drives 0:23:16.680 --> 0:23:21.160 false news to be uh more viral. That's so interesting 0:23:21.400 --> 0:23:25.520 the social media platforms, what are they doing, if anything, 0:23:25.800 --> 0:23:29.320 to stop the false narratives? Well, I mean, I think 0:23:29.359 --> 0:23:32.399 that you can see that in the last six months 0:23:32.960 --> 0:23:36.679 they have stepped up their efforts to address the spread 0:23:36.680 --> 0:23:41.280 of information. A year ago or so, Mark Zuckerberg gave 0:23:41.320 --> 0:23:44.879 a speech in sort of Georgetown at elector and he said, 0:23:44.960 --> 0:23:47.040 we don't want to be the arbiters of truth. We 0:23:47.080 --> 0:23:49.960 don't want to have any uh, you know, sort of 0:23:50.200 --> 0:23:54.240 role in that. But I think the pressure mounted and 0:23:54.720 --> 0:23:57.199 uh in the last six months or so leading up 0:23:57.200 --> 0:24:01.640 to the election, the social media platform began moderating content 0:24:01.800 --> 0:24:07.000 a lot more proactively and aggressively, and they implemented several 0:24:07.000 --> 0:24:14.080 different policies, including, for instance, Twitter forcing you to quote 0:24:14.080 --> 0:24:17.200 tweet instead of retweet without thinking, nudging you to read 0:24:17.240 --> 0:24:22.320 the article before you retweet it, m de emphasizing false 0:24:22.680 --> 0:24:29.840 misinformation public health misinformation in search results, demonetizing fake news 0:24:29.920 --> 0:24:33.600 on WhatsApp. Facebook limited the number of reshares of any 0:24:33.640 --> 0:24:37.080 type of information to try and blow all information down. First, 0:24:37.160 --> 0:24:42.280 they limited to five than one reshares. And so now 0:24:42.840 --> 0:24:47.920 what you see is them taking even more visible actions, 0:24:48.200 --> 0:24:52.359 which culminated in the banning of Donald Trump's account by 0:24:52.560 --> 0:24:56.360 uh not just Facebook and Twitter, but also Pinterest, snapchat, 0:24:57.040 --> 0:25:01.400 um and other places. And so it's sort of boiled 0:25:01.520 --> 0:25:05.160 to come to a head now I think I should 0:25:05.200 --> 0:25:09.560 point out that when Twitter band Donald Trump's account, UH, 0:25:09.680 --> 0:25:13.560 they used to tweets as a justification which were frankly, 0:25:13.680 --> 0:25:17.960 much more innocuous than the content he had put out beforehand, 0:25:18.440 --> 0:25:24.480 and because Twitter's policy was reactive instead of proactive, they 0:25:24.520 --> 0:25:29.520 were caught off guard banning the account on what some 0:25:30.000 --> 0:25:34.960 might argue was innocuous grounds. And so that provides UH 0:25:35.240 --> 0:25:39.800 fodder for the argument that this is censorship. Is absurd 0:25:39.840 --> 0:25:43.440 that you would ban on an account on these two tweets. 0:25:43.440 --> 0:25:45.840 But their argument is that in the content, in the 0:25:45.880 --> 0:25:49.840 broader context of all the content, the repeated misinformation, the 0:25:49.880 --> 0:25:55.720 repeated calls to violence, um, and UH incendiary content, that's 0:25:55.800 --> 0:25:58.800 the justification for the band. I think now what we 0:25:58.880 --> 0:26:02.040 have to be careful about is what has been termed 0:26:02.040 --> 0:26:05.280 the Splinternet, the sort of tearing a part of our 0:26:05.440 --> 0:26:10.639 human social network into different factions, where conservatives go to 0:26:10.800 --> 0:26:15.560 parlor and you know, liberals maybe go to other social networks. 0:26:16.119 --> 0:26:20.040 After the band, what you saw was Trump allies condemning 0:26:20.080 --> 0:26:23.720 the band and then saying, like for instance, Mark Levine 0:26:23.840 --> 0:26:27.800 rush Limbaugh Um, what some might call fringe conservatives who 0:26:27.840 --> 0:26:32.520 have a large following, saying I'm voluntarily suspending my account 0:26:32.560 --> 0:26:35.560 on Twitter, follow me on Parlor and rumble and let's 0:26:35.560 --> 0:26:39.000 have the conversation there. Uh. And so we have to 0:26:39.040 --> 0:26:42.800 be very careful about this splintering of our civil society 0:26:42.880 --> 0:26:46.359 because any student of negotiation knows that in order to 0:26:46.400 --> 0:26:50.439 achieve collaboration, cooperation, and even empathy, you have to have 0:26:50.560 --> 0:26:54.439 common ground. And if we split into these factions with 0:26:54.600 --> 0:26:59.200 different sets of information, uh, they're seeing completely different narratives 0:26:59.240 --> 0:27:01.600 and never talk think to each other, that empathy is 0:27:01.640 --> 0:27:06.560 hard to achieve. There was action taken against Parlor. Is 0:27:06.600 --> 0:27:10.639 that going to stop it being means of communication? I 0:27:10.680 --> 0:27:14.920 don't think so. So, you know, Amazon removed it from 0:27:14.920 --> 0:27:19.000 its hosting services. As soon as that happened, people said, oh, 0:27:19.040 --> 0:27:23.800 this is big tech, uh, controlling the Internet. And I 0:27:23.880 --> 0:27:26.159 predicted that they would get a new hosting service than 0:27:26.200 --> 0:27:28.439