They shouted for the United States to "start a civil war."

"Civil War," "Killing All FBI Agents," "Assassination of Attorney General Garland" — Since the FBI conducted an Aug. 8 raid on former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, the U.S. Internet has been filled with posts that encourage civil war. "Judging from my surveillance, this is a 'flood.'" Beridge, co-founder of the Global Anti-Hate and Extremism Project, says so.

The Global Times reporter combed and found that in the "wave" of instigating civil war, some far-right social software and websites, "white supremacist" organizations, as well as conservative news program hosts and Republican lawmakers played a key role in fueling the "wave" of civil war, and many of these websites and people were related to the Capitol Hill riots.

On November 7, 2020, after the US media predicted biden's victory, Trump supporters marched in North Las Vegas, Nevada, demonstrating that some people were carrying guns.

Some people called for "bullet loading"

"Bullet loaded!" After the FBI "raided" Trump's home, the post sent by netizen "Hujasik" quickly appeared on the "hot search" in the United States, and the platform he posted was the "patriot" who was called "the magnet for extreme speech" by the Financial Times. Win" forum.

The forum, which bills itself as a "never-ending rally dedicated to Trump," is one of the most famous online platforms to support the former U.S. president.

"Patriots. The predecessor of "Win" is a sub-forum created in 2015 on the US social platform Reddit.

The sub-forum, called "r/The_Donald," is "known" for promoting conspiracy theories and racist rhetoric.

In June 2020, the sub-forum was "blocked" for violating Reddit rules, after which Trump supporters created "Donald Trump" (Donald Trump). Win" (thedonald.win) forum, which undertakes "r/The_Donald" previously users.

There are data showing that by the end of 2020, "Donald. Win" ranks 464th in the ranking of all sites visited in the United States. At its peak, the site was visited more than 1 million times a day.

According to the Washington Post and other US media reports, "Donald. The Win forum played an important role in instigating and orchestrating the Capitol Hill riots.

A few weeks before the storm on Capitol Hill, the site was filled with posts about how gallows were built to hang or intimidate "disloyal" members of Congress.

On the forum, netizens were advised to bring guns into Washington, and they were told how much ammunition they should carry if the protests turned into gunfights.

Someone in "Donald. Win" forum shared a schematic diagram of the U.S. Capitol underground tunnel system.

After US President Biden took office, "Donald B. Win "renamed " Patriot. Win".

Niche social media became a raging place

In addition to the above forums, the social software "Truth Social" has also become the main position for Trump supporters to issue "roars" after the Mar-a-Lago incident.

At the time of the FBI's search of Mar-a-Lago, Trump posted on Truth Society that his "beautiful home is being besieged, raided and occupied by a large number of FBI agents."

His post quickly angered its supporters at the FBI while pushing up Truth Social's download rankings on Apple's App Store.

"Truth Social" is a social software launched by Trump himself.

After the Capitol Hill riots, Trump was "blocked" by mainstream social media such as Facebook, so on February 21 this year, he officially launched this Twitter-like social software and the website of the same name to fight against the "tyranny of large technology companies".

The software suffered technical problems for a long time after its launch, resulting in fewer users. Before June, Trump also rarely posted on the software.

Time magazine said that in June this year, Trump published a series of posts on "Truth Social" about the hearings of the Capitol Hill riots, resulting in a large increase in the number of downloads of the social software.

The theme of Trump's posts on "Truth Social" is usually "election fraud", but also involves topics such as the Johnny Depp divorce case and the midterm elections in Congress.

As of Aug. 19, Trump's followers on Truth Social have exceeded 3.9 million, but that's only a fraction of what he previously had on Twitter's more than 80 million followers.

After the Mar-a-Lago incident, except for the "Patriots. In addition to "Win" and "Truth Social," many Trump supporters turned to niche online platforms like Rube and Gettr to vent their anger.

There are also partnerships between these online platforms.

Truth Social signed a contract with Rumble, who was responsible for part of Truth Social's operations.

Conservative organizations such as the Frog Army: Civil war is imminent

The online call for a civil war in the United States is largely by far-right activists, many of whom come from conservative groups such as the Frog Army and Proud Boys.

In the social media chat groups of these organizations, many people said that "civil war is imminent".

In 2017, the "Pepe Frog" was greatly welcomed by the alternative right wing of the United States, and some extremists slightly modified the "Pepe Frog" to become the representative pattern of the "Frog Army".

According to the website of the NGO Anti-Defamation League, the Frog Army is a loose network of alternative right-wing figures opposed to immigration, globalism, homosexuality and feminism, with a more subtle ideology than other "white supremacist" organizations, trying to make itself more mainstream by combining with "Christian" and "traditional" values.

Ironically, the "Frog Army" is targeting not only the left, but also conservatives they believe are not "pure" enough.

The group often issues "soul torture" to mainstream conservative organizations in the United States, criticizing the latter for failing to advance a true "America First" agenda.

According to media reports such as the Arizona Mirror, many members of the "Frog Army" are "trolls" of the Internet.

The group's leaders include well-known podcast host Fuentes, among others.

He started by producing the "America First" series of videos on social media, but his videos have been frequently blocked by platforms such as Youtube.

The U.S. Congress has previously summoned leaders of the Frog Army, including Fuentes, accusing them of spreading false statements about the election at rallies, which led to the outbreak of riots on Capitol Hill.

There are reports that the "Frog Army" is becoming more and more mainstream.

Some politicians planning to participate in the U.S. midterm elections are seeking the support of the "Frog Army."

Senator Wendy Rogers of Arizona has posted on social media calling on the Frog Army to help her "deal" with her political enemies.

In addition to the Frog Army, members of far-right organizations such as Proud Boy and Anonymous Q are also the main groups calling for war.

Proponents of Anonymous Q argue that there is a "deep government" within the U.S. government that controls the entire United States, and that the "deep government" believes in Satan and opposes Trump and his supporters.

Founded in 2016 by Mike Innis, a Canadian media personality living in the United States, "Proud Boys" has been recognized as a terrorist organization by Canada, New Zealand and other countries.

The group, which describes itself as a haven of "Western chauvinists," promotes anti-Muslim, anti-degenerative, anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic views and has close ties to Trump and the Republican Party.

"Influencers" and parliamentarians are involved

After the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago, some influential "internet celebrities" in the United States also posted calling for a civil war, the most notable of which was Steven Claude, who has more than 5 million followers on Youtu.

He previously worked at Fox News before publishing political commentary programs promoting conservative views on platforms such as Youtube, which was popular with young conservatives, many of whom had college fans.

Crowder has nearly 2 million followers on Twitter.

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, a Republican in Georgia, is arguably the highest-ranking politician to mention the "Civil War."

She is a conspiracy theorist who preaches "white supremacy" and anti-Semitism.

Before running for Congress, there were calls for the execution of U.S. dignitaries, including Hillary, and Green expressed support for that.

As Trump's "iron fan," Green has repeatedly claimed that the former president won the 2020 election.

She also filed impeachment papers against Biden the day after he was sworn in, accusing him of abuse of power.

It's not just his extreme views that make Green famous.

She has said in an interview that solar and wind power generation cannot function at night, which will cause appliances such as refrigerators to be unusable.

U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has said Green's belief in conspiracy theories and "stupid lies" is "the cancer of the Republican Party."

There are also Democrats calling for her to be expelled from the House.

Social Media Split Deepens 'America's Rift'

After the riots on Capitol Hill broke out, Trump was "blocked" by mainstream social media, and his supporters were extremely angry about it and "switched" to niche social media.

This has led to the flourishing of marginal social media such as Rumble, Parler, and Gab, and the formation of a "fight" trend with mainstream social media.

Many experts worry that Americans' choice of social media software based on the political leanings of different platforms will lead to social media fragmentation, a trend that will not only exacerbate social polarization in the United States, but also fuel the spread of extremism.

"Amazon, Twitter, Facebook, goodbye!" After tech giants such as Twitter and Facebook announced the ban on Trump's account, supporters of the former president ran to these social media platforms to leave messages to express their anger.

According to media reports such as USA Today, after Trump was "banned", Parler issued a statement saying that people have the right to better service and do not need to be told how to think.

The statement seems to resonate.

Market research firms found that because it was "friendly" to conservatives, Parler became the number one software downloaded by Apple and Google's App Store last November, with both its users and single-day active users soaring by more than 3 million in a short period of time.

Parler's similar experience includes social media platforms like MeWe, Rumble, Gab and more.

Among them, Parler and Gab are a copy of Twitter, while Rumble is equivalent to a replacement for Youtube.

Rumble is one of the "best of these platforms".

The New York Times recently said that not only is Trump stationed on the platform, it is also supported by tens of millions of dollars from some center-right entrepreneurs. Rumble has recently averaged 44 million visits per month.

These niche social media platforms, like Trump's "truth social" software, advertise themselves as "bastions of free speech" and don't impose restrictions like Twitter and Facebook.

These platforms have thus attracted a large number of center-right conservatives as well as far-right elements.

Some prominent political and media personalities in the United States have also joined niche social media platforms.

South Dakota Gov. Nome announced that she has opened an account on MeWe.

Fox Business Host Battirom said she had left Twitter to turn to Parler.

Because niche social media is less restrictive, far-right people continue to post conspiracy theories and racist statements on these platforms.

They argue that this is a practice of free speech without interference from mainstream social media platforms.

However, experts warn that the growing influence of niche social media platforms could further fuel extremist tendencies.

The choice of social media software by different groups of people based on their political leanings will create an environment that reinforces cognitive biases, dividing social media users into libertarian and conservative camps, further leading to a split in American society.

Rauch, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a U.S. think tank, said the U.S. will inevitably see a split in social media.

In January 2021, Apple and Google removed parler from their app store on the grounds that Parler's measures to prevent incitement to violence were insufficient, and Amazon suspended providing parler with cloud services.

Some conservatives are very unhappy about this. Some experts analyzed "Deutsche Welle" and said that if the network environment is open, everyone can observe the information released by different groups of people on the Internet, so that it can be predicted what will happen.

If some groups are dispersed across different social platforms or move to offline activities, it will be more difficult for analysts to observe their actions and to detect possible disruption or violence.

Parler reappeared in the Apple App Store in February 2021 after adding a content filter.

What worries some observers is that niche social media platforms and some mainstream news outlets are engaged in "whitewashing."

Vogt, head of global communications at the Sufan Group, a national and foreign security consulting firm, said in an interview with the Chronicle online magazine that many conspiracy theories start out as marginal information and then audiences see them on Fox News, further increasing the spread of conspiracy theories.

In the information ecosystem, the gap between die-hard extremists and mainstream society is getting smaller and smaller.

According to the Washington Post reported on August 9, extremists are also trying to bring together the extremism of different factions by promoting some "common causes", such as opposing restrictions due to the new crown pneumonia epidemic.

Analysts say every "iterative update" of the extremist group has made the network more complex and more violent.

Source: World Wide Web