Daily Archives: January 13, 2021

The attack on the US Capitol prompted unprecedented action from Twitter and Facebook, amid criticism that the president was using their platforms to foment an insurrection.

Tens of thousands of accounts, pages and groups tied to the more extreme parts of the pro-Trump movement have been suspended and banned following the attack - as have Donald Trump's own accounts - driving his supporters to fringe websites.

One alternative platform, Parler, was removed from Apple and Google's app stores over the weekend - with Amazon kicking Parler's website off its hosting infrastructure. Now, many of Mr Trump's supporters are seeking services that can resist action taken by tech giants and governments.

Sky News has observed a rise in the number of conversations and engagements taking place on platforms such as Gab, MeWe, Telegram and CloutHub.

The scale of the bans on mainstream social networks is not clear. Twitter says it has removed 70,000 accounts that promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory - but many users operated multiple accounts, so the size of the movement on the platform was smaller than it first appeared.

Facebook announced that it would begin removing posts quoting the QAnon catchphrase "stop the steal" ahead of Joe Biden's inauguration on 20 January due to the risk of additional violence.

But these messages have found new spaces to flourish, as Sky News found through direct observations and data from CrowdTangle, a public insights tool owned and operated by Facebook.

Social networks like Gab and MeWe are offering a replacement for Facebook and Twitter - while other aspects of the movement continue to foment on even more fringe forums including 4chan, 8chan, and The Donald.

Gab

Gab was launched as a self-proclaimed free speech website in 2016 by Andrew Torba and Ekrem Buyukkaya. It is now widely considered to be a digital haven for far-right extremists, with researchers linking it to radicalisation and offline violence.

Its users include US politician Marjorie Greene, a newly elected Republican member of the House of Representatives, who has regularly supported the QAnon conspiracy theory.

Ms Greene had posted a picture of herself on Facebook holding a rifle next to images of Democratic congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib - stating it was time to "go on the offence against these socialists who want to rip our country apart". Facebook deleted the image for inciting violence.

In a new post on Gab, Ms Greene said: "Dems are the hypocrites that call for violence. The people see through it all. No amount of censorship will hide the truth."

Gab's app was removed from the Google Play store in 2017 for violating hate speech policy, and it is not listed in Apple's app store for similar reasons.

Despite this, Google Trends data shows an increase in searches for Gab following Mr Trump's suspension from Twitter on 8 January - notably in traditionally conservative states such as Alaska and North Dakota.

CrowdTangle - which tracks public interactions such as likes, comments and shares on public Facebook posts - also shows an increase in interactions on posts that mention Gab. It recorded over 290,000 interactions on these posts since Sunday.

Following the move to take Parler offline, Gab claimed that it was adding more than 600,000 new users every day in a tweet that was subsequently deleted. Independent metrics gauging the social network's popularity are not available.

As the site appeared to deal with the apparent influx of new visitors, the company's chief technology officer said they had brought 10 new servers online and quoted Mr Trump in stating: "The best is yet to come."

Gab's owners have regularly used their Twitter accounts to express support for Donald Trump and actively market their platform on the basis of being sympathetic to causes popular with the far-right, including conspiracy theories they claim are being unfairly targeted for censorship.

Alongside these posts, the platform features news articles from Russia Today, as well as pseudo-religious messages from QAnon followers calling for the community to keep the faith, with one stating: "Do you have any idea what's going to happen next? Good. Neither do they."

MeWe

MeWe was founded in 2012 by Mark Weinstein, initially as a privacy-positive version of Facebook. The social networking service has grown in popularity with Mr Trump's supporters as a result of moderation efforts pushing some of them away from more mainstream platforms.

CrowdTangle data shows a rise in interactions with public posts mentioning MeWe following 8 January, with nearly 100,000 interactions recorded on the following day. There was also a marked increase in public interactions on posts of this kind in the weeks that followed the election.

MeWe has jumped almost 100 places in the US app store rankings over the past two days - and according to Sensor Tower, it is now the seventh-most popular free app. It also saw a surge in popularity after November's vote.

The app's pro-Trump user base appears to have been increasing over recent months - although it has not been courted by Mr Weinstein.

He has said: "I think sites where anything goes are terrible. At MeWe we have strict rules in our terms prohibiting content inciting violence, posting hate, bullying, breaking the law, etc."

Telegram

Telegram is one of the most popular apps outside of the English-speaking world, especially among protesting communities.

It offers end-to-end encryption (although not by default), as well as large chat rooms - both public and private - where users can share photos, videos and files with each other.

Pro-Trump Telegram channels have noted the increasing number of influential conservative commentators joining Telegram after Parler was taken offline.

Like Gab and MeWe, CrowdTangle shows an increase in interactions on public posts mentioning the word Telegram on Facebook in the days leading up to and after Trump's suspension from social media.

Membership appears to be growing especially significantly in extremist Telegram chats, according to Professor Megan Squire. She warned on Twitter that white nationalists are attempting to win over Trump supporters who are joining the platform due to the actions taken by Twitter and Facebook.

The Washington Post reported that talk of guns and potential violence was "rife" on the messaging app ahead of the mob attack on the Capitol following the president's rally.

Telegram has climbed up the app store rankings in the days since 8 January - where it now occupies the second spot, according to Sensor Tower.

This may be partially driven by privacy concerns regarding WhatsApp rather than by supporters of Donald Trump.

CloutHub

Founded in 2018, CloutHub markets itself as "the people's platform" for users engaged in political, social and community activism. Like Gab, they have been vocal about their opposition to perceived censorship by Big Tech.

CloutHub has enjoyed a surge in interest in recent days. There were 512 interactions on public Facebook posts mentioning CloutHub on 512 - but according to CrowdTangle, this rose to 32,100 a day later.

This came after the anti-Democrat #WalkAway campaign announced it was moving to CloutHub following its removal by Facebook.

Google Trends data also indicates an increase in interest in the site in the US through its analysis of search queries.

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Extremists spread across platforms

According to Fred Burton, a former special agent, the distribution of potential extremists across fringe platforms doesn't necessarily make things more difficult for law enforcement monitoring potential threats.

The executive director of the Centre for Protective Intelligence at Ontic said: "The US intelligence community is geared for these kinds of investigations.

"The ability to go back and look at some of these individuals that are on these fringe kind of elements, the howlers that are out there, whether it be on fringe social media platforms - even with Parler being shut down now - law enforcement is very good at looking and ferreting out those kinds of individuals.

"Since 9/11, technology has been enhanced to the point that all of your digital signals can be looked at from an investigative perspective if there's probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed, or if someone's on there fomenting hate speech.

"Social media is a double-edged sword, we all know that, but it also provides law enforcement with the opportunity to be able to do some continuous monitoring of individuals that might be predisposed towards that kind of violence."

Mr Burton, who has worked in the arena of protective intelligence since the 1980s, said: "The ones that you can see are the ones that - yes, at times, you have to worry about - but there are others [that you can't see] always, that you really have to be concerned about."

Addressing the threat posed by these individuals "takes more human intelligence efforts, and the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force - again another byproduct of what happened after 9/11 - are very good at ferreting out those kinds of individuals".

Far-right terrorists have been known to use sites such as 4chan and 8chan, which aren't replacements for social networks clamping down on some of Mr Trump's supporters, but remain key locations fomenting many of the ideological messages that drive the movement on other platforms.

Shortly before the mass shootings at two mosques in the New Zealand city of Christchurch, the gunman posted a link on 8chan to the Facebook page where he would livestream his attack, as well as a copy of his manifesto.

8kun/8chan

Following two other domestic terror attacks in the US in August 2019 - one involving a mass shooting at a Walmart in Texas, and another at a bar in Ohio - 8chan lost its hosting provider and renamed itself 8kun.

Its original founder, Fredrick Brennan, now disavows the site entirely. Mr Brennan accuses its current owner, Jim Watkins, of facilitating the person or group behind the QAnon conspiracy theory.

The eponymous "Q" came to fame by posting their messages on the forum. The QAnon community now dominates the site with numerous boards dedicated to understanding the quasi-religious prophecies that the account posts there.

As a result of significant efforts to deplatform the site, 8kun now features only hundreds of posts every hour - compared with tens of thousands at its pinnacle.

However the discussions show the extremist influences on the pro-Trump movement, including extensive neo-Nazi and antisemitic imagery.

One post seen by Sky News read: "To any ******** who doesn't believe there'll be a civil war, here's a newsflash - it's already happening. We're already in the beginning stages.

"We're gonna soon experience the full effects pretty soon. Get trained, get prepared. Our side has already thrown some blows."

As examples of these "blows", the post listed neo-Nazi terrorist Dylann Roof, the Unite the Right white supremacist rally, and the date of the Capitol building attack.

4chan's Politically Incorrect board

4chan's notorious Politically Incorrect discussion board (known as /pol/ due to its URL) has become one of the most significant fringe communities online for the far-right.

Although the forum is owned by Japanese entrepreneur Hiroyuki Nishimura, it is not known who the board's controlling moderators are, despite the significant editorial control they can wield over what threads are allowed to remain on the site.

Alongside 8kun, 4chan was one of the primary locations for QAnon conspiracy theories to be developed. Numerous false claims about electoral integrity which would eventually be articulated by unreliable media outlets - including the debunked conspiracy theory regarding Dominion Voting Systems computers - originated there.

The Donald

The Donald originated as a page on Reddit before that social media platform banned the community in June 2020 for trying to "weaponise parts of Reddit against other people".

The moderators of the forum, who are also anonymous, created a mirror on a new domain. The site appears to be much busier following the moves from Twitter and Facebook.

The rest is here:
Banned from Twitter and Facebook, which sites are the pro-Trump movement using now? - Sky News

There are many reasons And Just Like That,the forthcoming HBO Max reboot ofSex and the City, is a terrible idea. Theres the fact that the most recent installment of the franchise, Sex and the City 2, was released more than a decade ago, roughly the same time as the Eyjojakfull volcano, or eons ago in internet years. Theres the fact that Sex and the City 2was critically reviled due to its bloated two-and-a-half-hour run time, inherent Islamophobia, and clunky screenplay featuring such sterling wordplay as Lawrence of my labia. And theres the fact that, while critically acclaimed and hailed as subversive at the time of its release, Sex and the Cityitself has aged rather poorly, presenting a fantasia of New York City in which everyone is white, thin, heterosexual, and prone to wearing oddly positioned belts.

But the primary reason the Sex and the Cityreboot is a bad idea is the glaring absence of one of its four main characters the one who constituted the heart and soul, and arguably the moral center, of the entire franchise: the sexually voracious publicist Samantha Jones, played by Kim Cattrall.

Cattrall has been publicly warring with the other main players in the Sex and the Citycast in case you just woke up from a coma: Sarah Jessica Parker as navel-gazing writer Carrie Bradshaw; Cynthia Nixon as uptight attorney Miranda Hobbes; and Kristin Davis as WASPy gallerist Charlotte York for years, accusing them of forming a mean-girl clique that excluded her at every turn. (Naturally, at one point there was a dispute over being invited to a rental property while shooting in the Hamptons.) She repeatedly told interviewers that she would not participate in another installment of the franchise. Whether or not you think her stance is justified depends on numerous factors, like whether you tend to align yourself with the underdog (in this case, Cattrall) or youre a fan of celebrity-branded $400 shoes (SJP). Regardless, anyone actively rooting for a SATCreboot knew in their hearts that it would be one without Samantha, which last weeks release of the And Just Like Thatteaser confirmed.

But aSex and the Cityreboot without Samantha is noSex and the Cityat all. Its a paltry cash-grab, a facsimile of its former self, a screen grab of a Xerox copy of the very elements that have engendered such a rabidly loyal fan base to this day. Because as even the biggest SATCcritics know, at its core Sex and the Cityis neither about sex nor the city, nor shoes nor Chris Noths cleft chin, nor inexplicably wearing belts around your midriff its about the enduring power of female friendship. And the absence of one of the core group of female friends at its heart betrays that very idea.

In a different world, on a different series, and with a different actor, Samantha would have failed to rise above a mere caricature. She is libidinous to a comical degree, with a level of horniness rarely seen outside a MILF porn or tweets about Jon Ossoff. She has a propensity for snappy, Mae West-esque one-liners (dirty martini, dirty bastard, she purrs as she splashes a drink on a loutish ex-lover) and a level of confidence that seems borderline chemically induced, a fortysomething version of a homophobes conception of a drag queen. Indeed, more than one person has referred to the character as effectively a gay man in drag, though that perspective says a lot more about a persons views of gay male sexuality than it does about Cattralls portrayal.

But despite the cartoonishness of the character, and some of the politically incorrect lapses for which the show has been retroactively flagellated (see: the one time Samantha dated a man of color, referring to his big black cock), Samantha also has a bounty of admirable qualities. She is unapologetic about her lifestyle, continuously rebuffing judgmental health care professionals and snooty society wives. In the face of adversity, she is indefatigable, as seen in the final season when, struggling with breast cancer, she delivers a frank, vulgar speech at a cancer benefit, culminating in all the attendees proudly tossing their wigs into the air. Above all else, she is fiercely loyal to her friends, taking their sides even in petty skirmishes. At a baby shower, when Charlotte accuses a pregnant woman of stealing her future baby name, Samantha doesnt hesitate in calling the pregnant woman a bitch and ushering Charlotte out of the party; when a fragile Carrie tells her she is having an affair with her shitty ex, Samantha is unflappable, coolly telling Carrie that judging her for such a transgression is not [her] style. Critics have accused the four women at the heart of Sex and the City of being pathologically shallow and self-involved, but that applies the least to Samantha. In fact, despite being the most hedonistic, vice-indulging member of the quartet, she is arguably the most ethical.

Its hard to overemphasize just how large a role Cattralls performance plays in this. A less deft performer would play Samantha as little more than a man-eating cougar, Mrs. Robinson meets Jessica Rabbit with a dash of RuPaul thrown in for good measure. But while Cattralls campy delivery of punny lines like, Youre dating Mr. Big, Im dating Mr. Too Big is not beyond parody (and Christina Aguilera did so to pitch-perfect effect on an old episode of Saturday Night Live), she consistently imbues it with a level of fragility that goes above and beyond the material the writers gave her. Theres no better example of this than when she is betrayed by Richard (James Remar), the loutish hotelier who is the only man to truly scale Samanthas steely exterior. After she walks in on him giving oral sex to a random woman, she smashes a painting of a heart over her knee. There. Now your hearts broken too, she sobs. In the hands of a lesser actor, the line would be laughable. But Cattrall delivers it with such exquisite sorrow and conviction that its hard not to have your heart break along with hers.

Critics are not shy about pointing outSex and the Citys multifarious flaws, its attitudes toward race and sexuality among them (remember when Samantha becomes a lesbian?), as well as its healthy doses of Catskill comic-level puns. Few have singled out Cattralls virtuoso performance, how nimbly she fills out what should have been a wolfish caricature with warmth and vigor which is even more impressive considering how miserable Cattrall says she was during the duration of the series. (She claims she was subject to the worst treatment of all by Parker; the fact that Parker publicly has been nothing but kind and infuriatingly gracious in response makes Cattrall look terribly petty and makes me believe she is telling the truth.) People often single out Nixons understated, Emmy-winning performance as an example of real acting on the series, but nothing will ever make me laugh or make my heart soar more than Samantha triumphantly defending her life choices to Carrie by proclaiming she will blow whoever she wants as long as she can breathe or kneel.

Theres been much discussion over how theSATCreboot will deal with Samanthas absence. Cattrall has said she would like to see the character recast, perhaps with a woman of color or a nonbinary person, a laudable goal if not one that glosses over the privileged, white femaleness of the character. Meanwhile, Parker has responded to fans objections by primly saying: Samantha isnt part of this story. But she will always be part of us. No matter where we are or what we do. This leads me to believe that the writers have probably killed her off, perhaps by the breast cancer that she so valiantly fought in the shows final season. This strikes me as both a betrayal of the character and of Cattrall herself. All of the main characters on the show are fantasy versions of women, and fantasies by definition do not die, especially one with as much vibrancy as Cattrall gave Samantha. To casually murder the woman she spent nearly two decades embodying at great personal cost, according to her seems like nothing short of a slap in the face. But above all else, SATCwithout a Samantha is an insult to the fans who have spent 20 years falling in love with the world the show has built and the women who live in it and they should accept nothing less than the complete version of the real thing.

See more here:
There Is No Sex and the City Without Samantha - Rolling Stone

Itwas always irreverent, often controversial and fiercely independent. As of thisweek, Indian Charlie is no more.

Thesardonic newsletter that Ed Musselman distributed free of charge for nearly 27years, first on racetrack backstretches in Kentucky and more recently throughdigital media, was posted for the last time Monday, according to its leadstory. (See the final issue here.)

Notbeing able to interact directly with horsemen and women at both racetracks andat horse sales due to the coronavirus took away any advantage we had to reporton issues and stories not otherwise covered in mainstream Thoroughbred racingpublications, the story said.

Withoutgetting into specifics, the note to readers mentioned some mistakes wemade last year that also entered into this decision, that Indian Charliewas a bit of a rerun in 2020 and that, in some ways, the game has passed usby.

Musselmanturned down a request from HRN for an interview Monday.

Inits familiar legal-sized format, but without the usual back page full ofadvertisements, Mondays edition was the first in two months, although aThanksgiving-to-New Years Day break has been the norm for years.

Withits slogan we never let the truth get in the way of a good story, IndianCharlie was equal parts TMZ and The Onion. Its biting, anti-establishmentattitude made it popular with many backside denizens. But it also was polarizing.

Itsstaunchest supporters praised its no-boundaries, take-no-prisoners style, whileits loudest critics said Indian Charlie was too often racist and sexist.Churchill Downs, Keeneland and racetracks run by the New York RacingAssociation and The Stronach Group took turns banning it when their executives believedits content was too politically incorrect.

Aflashpoint came in 2014, when Louisville Metro police were called to investigatethe report of a fistfight at Churchill Downs between Musselman and one of thenewsletters frequent targets, trainer Dale Romans. Yes, it was over somethingthat Muggins wrote.

IndianCharliewent down swinging Monday, saying the new Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act bringshope that it will be the answer (to) suspect governing bodies like theKentucky Horse Racing Commission and the New York State Racing and WageringBoard calling balls and strikes in our sport.

Thelast of its trademark caricatures, always with an accurately depicted face,lampooned horse owner Don Gamble, perhaps making him the answer to a triviaquestion about the history of Indian Charlie.

Therewas also a serious editorial calling into question the absence of trainers DavidWhiteley, Richard Hazleton and Dickie Small; jockeys Larry Snyder and JohnLively; and horses Nodouble and Broad Brush from the National Racing Museum andHall of Fame.

TheLast Word took a swipe at animal-rights activists while being 100 percent allin for the federal intervention and tightening of all approved medications exceptLasix.

Musselmandid not go into detail about plans for his future. Instead, it was left tothe newsletter to say whatever direction we go in, any new pursuits going forward,will be announced first on this website.

IndianCharliearchives will remain available at IndianCharlie.com.

See original here:
After 27 years, the Indian Charlie newsletter is out of business - Horse Racing Nation

latest-stories

Guest Column: But then again, writes Mithila Saraf, Business Head, Famous Innovations, no industry should have such few women leaders

Advertising is overwhelmingly, unapologetically, unabashedly a boys club. All-male panels, all-male juries, all-male boardrooms werent unheard of until recently when having all-male anything became politically incorrect. You can count the number of women CCOs in our country on one hand (and you wouldnt even need the whole hand). The situation is no less grim at the bottom, take a look at any creative team in any agency. So much so that I have seen even the few creative women who are at the top, often turn themselves into pseudo-guys, laughing, joking and spitting like men (metaphorically, of course) to fit into this gang. Its no surprise then, that when a publication starts hunting for the people behind some of the years best work, they run into a wall full of men.

So yes, lets get mad at IMPACT, but lets also realize that this cover is a symptom of the issue and not the issue itself. The covers will change when our creative leadership and creative teams change. Otherwise, wed only be fixing advertisings PR problem, not its diversity problem. Otherwise, wed only be signaling to journalists that the next time you have a cover like this, go far and beyond to find women to put on the cover. This will then worsen the oft-repeated narrative, shes only there because shes a woman or shes only there for the diversity count. The point is, they shouldnt have to look far and beyond. And they wont. If all of us decide to look a little harder in our everyday hiring, nurturing and promoting decisions.

The secondary cause for concern here is also whose idea makes it to covers like these. Barring a few, you will mostly see Agency Heads on this cover. Do only Agency Heads at these agencies come up with ideas that make headlines? Do younger people in their teams not come up with good ideas? And if so, what are they doing in that agency? No, its just that it is the senior-most people whose ideas finally go through and see the light of day. Talk to any creative at any network agency and you will hear this story every day. At a time when advertising is already losing its sheen, this tells younger people, youre better off in content or just freelancing. This makes things worse for the representation of women because the number of women at the top is scanty anyway.

So what can be done about all of this? Start by looking around the floor at your team. Go back and review the last few multi-crore films you released. Do you see enough young people and women represented there? Its easy to say, we dont get talent / good ideas from these groups. Its harder to ensure that you sit down with them, help them with their ideas and give them the time they need to do what you could do in a matter of minutes in your sleep. Further, when you are invited to a jury, a panel or a cover, ask what is the ratio of men to women there. And the next time you hear a colleague or a friend undermine the success of a woman (even jokingly), remember that she was 9 times less likely to make it up there.

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not in any way represent the views of pitchonnet.com.

Read more here:
No magazine cover should have 1 woman and 9 men - Pitch

Spitting Image, the legendary political satire starring puppets, have savaged recently knighted Sir Lewis Hamilton in a tongue-in-cheek skit released on the occasion of his 36th birthday last week.

In Lewis Hamilton, Crusader For Justice he is depicted driving a car and justifying his stance on the environment, racing in politically incorrect countries and basically taking the mickey of the causes close to his heart, while wickedly suggesting double-standards by the seven-times F1 World Champion.

In an unprecedented year for the planet, Lewis has become a crusader for human rights and injustice around the globe. He instigated taking a knee by F1 drivers during the national anthem before a Grand Prix.

#BlackLivesMatter issues are close to his heart and the Briton galvanised awareness of the movement through his symbolic gestures and high-profile comments.

Mercedes went as far as changing the Silver Arrows livery to black.

The legendary, hold no punches, Spitting Image satire TV series is back since last year after a hiatus stretching from 1996, and are now back exclusively on BritBox. More information here>>>

More than 100 puppets have been crafted for the new series with the original shows co-creator Roger Law back to head the creative team with some of the worlds biggest names in his sights, Sir Lewis has not been spared..

f1formula 1formula oneLewis Hamiltonseasonspitting imagesworld championship

Read this article:
Hamilton savaged by Spitting Image on his birthday - Grand Prix 247

Words have long been humanitys most useful tool.

Few have described this more eloquently than Rabbi Jonathan Sacks ztl, the former Chief Rabbi of the UK, who passed away last year:

With words God created the universe: And God said, Let there beand there was. Through words He communicated with humankind. In Judaism, language itself is holy God created the natural universe with words.

God, in the narrative of Genesis, could have chosen any medium with which to create the world. He could have used a paintbrush to create life forms, or He could have merely thought the world into existence. Instead, he chose speech. He did this to convey a message that is no less significant today as it was in the days of old. In Sacks words:

We create worlds with words.

To put it in scientific terms: Yuval Noah Harari, the acclaimed Israeli author of the New York Times bestseller Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind,argues that the distinguishing characteristic of Homo sapiens is its unique ability to create complex systems of communication. Other species can communicate, but only on a basic level. But the human affinity for creating complex languages has allowed us to communicate beliefs, value systems, and/or myths to others that eventually result in mass cooperation cooperation on a scale that no other species has been able to achieve. Language has allowed humans to develop rich cultures and thriving civilizations. Hararis anthropological message is the same as Rabbi Sacks religious one: worlds emerge from words.

Anything that can be used for good can also be used for bad, and words are no exception. While words can bring rights for minorities, they can also lead to their subjugation at the hands of the majority. While words can bring freedom, they can also bring tyranny. While words can make society progress, they can also make it regress. While words can build worlds, they also have the power to destroy them.

Alternatively, to paraphrase Joe Biden: while words can inspire, they can also incite. Irrespective of ones views of the President-elect, that is an unavoidable truth.

We saw the power of words on display last week at the US Capitol insurrection. Instead of being used to build and inspire, words were used to destroy and incite.

Thousands of people, present because of the disproven falsehoods that were fed to them about the election in an effort to stop the steal, attended a Trump-organized rally in Washington D.C. on the day Congress was to conclusively certify Joe Biden as the winner of the election. But this was no mere demonstration. Trump urged his supporters to fight much harder against bad people; affirmed that his followers can never take back our country with weakness, [that they] have to show strength and [they] have to be strong; and told them that when [they] catch somebody in a fraud, [they] are allowed to go by very different rules. He invited them to march over to the Capitol. If you dont fight like hell, he asserted, youre not going to have a country anymore, also proclaiming, We will never give up. We will never concede.

The speech he delivered was deeply terrifying. Ultimately, whether it was from his speech that day or the lies he had been spewing beforehand, the destruction we saw was brought about as a result of words.

Throughout the past four years, many people have dismissed much of Trumps problematic use of words. Hes Trump, some would say. Hes rough around the edges; hes politically incorrect. Sometimes he phrases things wrongly. He isnt a conventional politician, and thats precisely why people like him. Dont overreact to mere words. But what people, among whom I include myself, didnt fully understand was the full powerof those words. The power they had to foment a political climate of falsehood, conspiracy theories, and extremism. The power they had to bring people to storm the US Capitol with QAnon, neo-Nazi, and white supremacist symbols. The power they had to result in the first siege of the US Capitol since the War of 1812.

Embed from Getty Images

Whenever a significant event happens, we should always think about what we can learn from it and how we can apply what we learn to our personal lives. Here is the simple message I think we should internalize after last weeks events: words matter. The way we speak matters. Problematic rhetoric should not be dismissed as just words, or just political incorrectness. There is a direct correlation between dangerous words and violent action. We arent the President, and we dont have such a wide-ranging audience as he does. But words are powerful even coming from regular people, people like you and me. While we dont have presidential powers, we do have another type of power, one constantly used in everyday life. It is a power that can be used for societys betterment if used to bring people together, but one that can also lead to societys destruction if used to tear people apart. Such is the power of words. The choice of how we use this power is solely up to us.

The way we talk indicates who we are. The words we choose demonstrate who we choose to be. Let us all internalize the timeless message that can be learned from last weeks horrific events, that while words can build worlds, they can, if not chosen carefully, be used to destroy them.

Lets use them to build.

Zev Bell is a Jewish 17 year-old student who attends TanenbaumCHAT high school in Toronto. He has a particular interest in politics, Judaism, philosophy, and science.

Original post:
The worlds we build and destroy with words - The Times of Israel

The violent entry of protesters into the Capitol provoked a wide range of views in Germany. In the context of analyzes, some historical analogies have been used and similar incidents have been mentioned in recent years.

a Radio interviewFor example, the historian Achats von Mller drew parallel attention between the Washington attack and the so-called March on Rome organized in October 1922 by the Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini.

Many German politicians recalled the events of August 29, 2020 in Berlin. In a demonstration against coronary measures, a group of German ultranationalists tried to force their way into the Bundestag building in Berlin.

The most common of those who tried to enter the building were the so-called Reichsburgers (Reichs citizens). (More details about Reichsberger here.)

Most far-right groups in Germany called the Washington attack a patriotic operation. This is despite the traditional anti-American characteristic of most nationalist organizations created in the post-war period.

In October 2014, this trend became apparent to the founders of the anti-Muslim and racist movement Pekida (abbreviated as European Patriots Against Islamization of the West). The founders initially wanted to call it: Pegota, European Patriots Against Western Americanization (recalls Volker Weiss in 2017: Dictatorial Rebellion. New ownership and the fall of the West.)

Groups and individuals not recommended by Methane openly expressed their sympathy and solidarity with those who entered the Capitol. Their position on the United States changed after Donald Trump became president. The origins of the Q-Anan conspiracy movement and the intensification caused by coronary restrictions have contributed to the strange international repercussions of unity.

The publications of German extremist activists or those close to sophisticated organizations were firmly aligned with the American rebels.

Here are some notable examples from radical, ultra-conservative and German nationalist publications.

The American election is the biggest fraud not only in American history but also in the history of democracies

Stage PI , (Politically incorrect), states that what has happened in the United States since 10.1.2021 is nothing more than an attempt to intimidate, punish, and isolate nearly 80 million Americans. -They voted for Trump. Of course, this election points to an unproven study that is the greatest fraud not only in the history of the United States, but in the history of democracies. (The study was published by a Romanian-language publication of the same name. On January 6, the Romanian extremist publication published an article entitled Patriots Occupy Capital Building! War to Save America.)

Death of the Patriot Ashley BabbittGerman courier(8.1 to 21) says he fell in the struggle for his firm belief that Donald Trump won the presidential election.

The right-wing racist and extremist party Third Way (Der III. Weck) claims that Ashley Babbitts death was a conscious assassination by an African-American police officer.

Editor of the Ultranationalist, Anti-Racist and Anti-Muslim Journal Small shop(7.1 to 2021), Jrgen Elsaser likens the attack to a revolution for the salvation of democracy. In his article, he argues that the established media is a liar and that the action of the rebels is a peaceful and patriotic act. These psychic forces are the result of the infiltration of psychic forces into the conservative and national-patriotic parties, which Elseir argues for in his rhetoric and anti-democratic attitudes (according to activists and activists on the Internet and social media), are now on the verge of establishing a global crown-dictatorship.

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Attack on the Capitol and the German far right - Cleveland American