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  • 3/25/2025
"Everything we saw online kind of came true."

Extremism experts have been warning about the growing danger of far-right extremists for years. Then the Capitol riots happened…

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00:00Today is a day I never could have imagined in my service as a member of the U.S. House,
00:05and I believe it's a day no American could have imagined.
00:08Lawmakers and law enforcement continue to kind of take a almost dismissive approach to
00:16online organizing, particularly when it comes to extremism.
00:19It can result in terrifying situations like we saw at the Capitol on January 6th.
00:30In the
00:56immediate days before the protest, we saw users sharing maps of entry points into the
01:02U.S. Capitol.
01:03We saw discussions of the weapon laws that exist in Washington, D.C., and different ways
01:09to potentially get around those weapon laws, and a nonstop drumbeat of users inciting each
01:17other to violence against people that they perceive as antithetical to their causes.
01:23Everything we saw online kind of came true.
01:29I will say that a majority of the domestic terrorism cases that we've investigated are
01:42motivated by some version of what you might call white supremacist violence, but it includes
01:47other things as well.
02:17Yesterday's scene at the Capitol was disturbing, to be quite honest.
02:24Swastikas and Confederate flags, nooses and automatic rifles do not represent who we are
02:30as Michiganders.
03:01These groups primarily recruit, organize, and converse with each other using social
03:13media, and a lot of them have moved on to alternative social media platforms.
03:17We're talking about things like Parler, Gab, MeWe, Wimkin.
03:24There's a whole host of different tech platforms with funny-sounding names that promise users
03:31very limited and very minimal moderation.
03:54I don't want to see violence, but if it has to be done, it has to be done.
04:17Now more than ever, it is important for us to fully come to grips with the threat that
04:23disinformation poses to the stability of our country and our social society.
04:30And if we don't come to grips with that, my fear is that we will see more events like
04:36this going forward in the future.

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