On January 6, as public officials met to certify Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 Presidential Election, supporters of Donald Trump stormed the capitol by mob, resulting in a riot that left five people dead.
In the days leading up to the riot, supporters of President Trump used a myriad of mainstream and fringe social media sites to organize and discuss the possibility of violence. Websites like Parler and TheDonald.win were “rife with posts about storming the Capitol,” according to an article in The Hill.
According to reporting by the New York Times, as Donald Trump ended his afternoon rally by calling on protestors to march on Congress, right-wing groups immediately took to these sites to promote the attack. At least 12 people openly posted about carrying guns inside the Capitol building, with others recommending tools that could help pry open doors.
Some were dressed in Viking costumes, some looked like soldiers in camouflage military uniforms, and others carried with them symbols of hate.
But they all united — as they had been for months — around a common falsehood: The election had been unlawfully stolen from Trump, who deserved the victory.
Fake news, from what it is to how it spreads, has been a hot topic throughout the past few years, especially amidst the recent election.
In the weeks following Election Day, President Trump has been making claims of widespread fraud that wrongfully resulted in Joe Biden’s win.
Jeff Hemsley, Professor of Information Studies at the iSchool, says that there
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