January 13, 2021 As images of the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol have been shared across social media, activists in the broader anti-Israel movement used photos that showed the appearance of an incongruous Israeli flag among pro-Trump protestors at the rally and outside the Capitol to falsely link Zionism and Israel with the extremism of January 6.
According to photos and reports, other national…
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January 13, 2021 The January 6 attack at our nation’s Capitol was deliberate and coordinated. Individuals who broke the law must be held accountable, but we cannot ignore that social media platforms, like Gab, may well bear a measure of criminal responsibility for the attack as well. To the extent Gab intentionally served as a forum for people to plan, coordinate, engage in or otherwise facilitate the criminal activity that took place on January 6, a Department of Justice investigation…
Table Talk: Family Conversations about Current EventsAs people increasingly turn to online sources, such as social media and AI, for news and information, a legitimate question arises: "How do I know this information is accurate?" This concern is well founded. Studies, including one published by Yale Insights, have found that social media algorithms and platforms "inadvertently encourag[e] users to spread misinformation." Given these risks, it's perhaps unsurprising that a 2023 Pew study found…
Civics Lesson
GRADE LEVEL: High School Which Form of Government Has the Most Power?
What are the Differences in Power Between Each Form of Government?
Which Form of Government Has the Most Power to Address Equity and Social Justice Issues?
Aside from the separation of powers at the federal level, the U.S. Constitution also describes the power relationships between state and federal governments, how that power will be distributed, and the relationships between the…
January 10, 2021 Screenshot of Parler logo as the site struggles to load during Sunday’s heavy traffic
Parler, the social media site frequented and promoted by a range of conservatives and right-wing extremists, is expected to be taken offline Sunday night, after Amazon Web Services announced the platform had violated its terms of service. This follows news that Apple app store and Google Play had suspended Parler.
Ahead of the shutdown, Trump surrogates and a range of…
January 08, 2021 Photo credit: Associated Press
Since the violence at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, some technology companies have taken additional steps to crack down on the dissemination of hate and violent conspiracy theories. This includes indefinite bans of many of Donald Trump’s social media accounts and Shopify ceasing its sale of merchandise from the Trump Organization.
However, many tech companies continue to play a significant role in spreading the hate and…
January 08, 2021 On Wednesday, January 6, 2021, pro-Trump extremists, including some identified right-wing extremists, stormed the U.S. Capitol building, interrupting the Congressional session affirming the election results and forcing a partial evacuation. The nation and the world watched the chaos unfold, including scenes of the mob on the Senate floor, in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office, and swarming the Capitol steps. By the time the siege ended, four people were dead: three from…
January 07, 2021
Manifestantes dentro del Capitolio de EE.UU, uno de ellos con una camisa que dice “Campamento Auschwitz” — Fuente: ITV news
A pocas horas de que extremistas pro-Trump irrumpieron en el edificio del Capitolio de los EE.UU., ideólogos, activistas y adeptos a las teorías de conspiración antisemitas intentaron implicar a los judíos y a los sionistas en la violencia. Aunque estos antisemitas tienen una variedad de…
January 07, 2021
Protestors—one wearing a “Camp Auschwitz” sweatshirt—inside the U.S. Capitol building. Photo credit: ITV news
In the hours since pro-Trump extremists stormed the U.S. Capitol building, antisemitic ideologues, activists and conspiracy theorists have attempted to implicate Jews and Zionists in the violence. Although these antisemites have a range of opinions about President Trump, many were united in their belief that the events of Wednesday,…
January 07, 2021 The invasion of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 by pro-Trump extremists forced a suspension of the Joint Session of Congress certifying the results of the 2020 election and necessitated the evacuation of elected officials and staff.
Security preparations for the certification were likely developed and implemented with the knowledge that state capitols have been a frequent target of extremists throughout 2020. Why these preparations failed so dramatically…
January 06, 2021 On Wednesday, January 6, 2021, pro-Trump extremists, including a broad coalition of right-wing extremists, descended on Washington, D.C. and a number of state capitals. Ostensibly gathered to hear President Trump and his family speak, and to dispute the result of the 2020 presidential election, which is scheduled to be certified in Congress on Wednesday, protesters stoked violence against law enforcement officers before storming the U.S. Capitol in an extraordinary display of…
January 04, 2021 Several pro-Trump protests are being organized on Wednesday, January 6, 2021, in Washington, D.C. to express rejection of the November 2020 election results and to pressure Congress to not certify President-Elect Joe Biden’s electoral victory. These events—which are being timed to coincide with a joint session of Congress where Electoral College votes will be formally counted—have been encouraged by President Trump in multiple inflammatory tweets urging his…
December 29, 2020 Since first emerging in the spring of 2020, “The Great Reset” conspiracy has gained traction with the ongoing spread of COVID-19 in both mainstream and fringe circles alike. In its most common form, adherents warn that “global elites” will use the pandemic to advance their interests and push forward a globalist plot to destroy American sovereignty and prosperity. However, there are more outlandish and pernicious strains of the conspiracy, and the…
Civics Lesson
GRADE LEVEL: High School What are Human Rights?
What is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
In 1946, in the immediate aftermath of World War II, with hopes of preventing future atrocities, an international committee with varied legal and cultural backgrounds began to draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The UDHR was proclaimed by the new United Nations General Assembly in 1948. This document contains 30 Articles that set a standard…
December 24, 2020 In mid-December an image started circulating on social media. The image was taken in Washington, D.C. and featured a man standing alongside a group of Proud Boys and wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the cryptic text “6MWE.” This code for “6 Million Wasn’t Enough” is a not-so-veiled reference to the Holocaust.
The man, who has not yet been identified, also wore a Proud Boys baseball hat and the skull face mask popular among -- but not…
December 13, 2020 On December 12, 2020, multiple pro-Trump demonstrations took place in Washington, DC, including one that was organized by white supremacists and another that included extremist speakers on their dais. Later that evening over 100 members of the right-wing extremist group the Proud Boys roamed the streets of the city while chanting expletive-laced slogans against Black Lives Matter and Antifa.
The Jericho March
The largest event of the day was a prayer…
December 11, 2020 THE WEEK’S BIG 3
The only Anne Frank memorial in the United States was vandalized Tuesday, a distressing display of hate that has prompted a police investigation. A report into last year's Christchurch mosque attack found that New Zealand security agencies were "almost exclusively" focused on the threat from Islamist terrorism, and police failed to enforce proper checks on firearm licenses. Facebook is embarking on a major overhaul of its algorithms that detect hate…
December 04, 2020 THE WEEK’S BIG 3
Police in New Jersey are investigating an apparent hate crime after the carcass of a dead pig was left on the doorstep of a rabbi’s home in the town of Lakewood. Two online retailers briefly listed shirts for sale with the words “I survived the Holocough” emblazoned on them, referencing a white supremacist meme. A suspected member of the right-wing sovereign citizen movement was arrested at a Boston bus station carrying a gun and…
What Educators and Family Members Can DoToday, local, national or international tragedies happen so frequently that they can feel almost commonplace. When a hate crime, mass shooting, act of terrorism or other terrible and hate-inspired event occurs, one of the first questions many people ask is, what should we tell the children? How can we explain to them what has happened? Despite our best efforts to protect youth from the details of hate-motivated events, we can never assume that they are…
November 24, 2020 By Vegas Tenold, Investigative Researcher, ADL Center on Extremism
President Trump’s loss to President-elect Joe Biden in the 2020 U.S. presidential election has presented the QAnon movement with a conundrum -- and a test of its ability to survive in the face of total cognitive dissonance.
For many QAnon believers, who subscribed to a movement founded on the notion of President Trump’s utter infallibility, the idea of an electoral loss was simply…