By Dhruv Kapur ’22, News Writer

On January 6, 2021, outside of the US Capitol building, a protest turned violent. Initially, it started out as a rally but it took a turn when President Trump told his supporters to “take back [their] country.” Trump later told the violent protestors to “go home in peace,” but the damage was already done. Thousands, enticed by his words, made their presence known during the electoral college vote to certify Joe Biden as the new president. The “rally” turned violent as extremist Trump supporters charged the Capitol building, overwhelming the police stationed outside and breaching the Capitol building. In the words of Charles Ramsey, a former D.C. police chief: “They were overwhelmed.” Steny Hoyer, a Democrat as well as the House majority leader, called the governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan, to inform him that “the U.S. Capitol Police [were] overwhelmed.” While some may believe that the rioters were aided by certain police members, the majority of the police officers present were overwhelmed and overrun. 

They then proceeded to vandalize, loot, and occupy the building for a few hours. Protestors stormed the Senate Chamber and photographed themselves stealing items, including the House of Representatives Speaker Podium. Bombs were later found in offices for the Democratic National Committee, Republican National Committee, and a nearby vehicle. But why did this riot happen?

To examine the lead up to these riots we have to look back to as early as April of 2020 in one of President Trump’s tweets. President Trump tweeted on April 14: “GET RID OF BALLOT HARVESTING, IT IS RAMPANT WITH FRAUD.” This was one of the first allegations of fraud by a large figurehead of politics, but accusations of fraud in this election may have been going on for much longer. Conspiracy theorists and organizations such as QAnon had been observing Trump’s actions since his first presidential campaign. In 2016, President Trump made accusations of voter fraud in an election he won according to the BBC. In 2020, President Trump falsely claimed voter fraud over 70 times in only 8 months of tweets. Many followers of President Trump and conspiracy websites such as QAnon were led on by these false claims which led to unrest in society. The reason that these groups have gained so much momentum is due to major social media companies such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook not being able to take down or discourage people from subscribing to these ideals. These companies have tried, but are met with accusations of shadow bans and discrimination against republicans. These ideas have been pushed by major news outlets such as Vice. The attention and outcry from Republicans led to social media companies not being able to do enough to limit the misinformation in social media. 

Unrest continued with the loss of the incumbent Trump to Joe Biden. On election night, the hashtag “StoptheSteal” went viral after videos allegedly showing voter fraud were posted. One of the videos showed a poll watcher being denied the ability to watch the votes being counted at a Philadelphia polling station. However, this video was misleading as some rules regarding the limit of polling stations a watcher can attend had been changed in previous years. This law change unfortunately had not been communicated correctly to poll workers, leading to this misunderstanding. Eventually, the poll workers let the poll watcher in and apologized. Unfortunately, the damage had already been done and #StoptheSteal already had a dedicated website and hundreds of thousands of followers. Facebook and Twitter tried to stop misinformation by banning any mention of conspiracy organizations such as QAnon, as well as removing #StoptheSteal content. 

While it is unfortunate that these protests turned to violence to get their message across, it reveals a major issue in this country. Mass misinformation has been a major factor in these riots, and as a country we must put the safety of our people first and stop false information from being released to prevent further unrest. Whether through social media, newspapers, or even simple talk amongst peers, the deception must be stopped in its tracks immediately.