Read the January 6 Committee Social Media Report
Justin Hendrix / Jan 17, 2023
An image of a noose outside the US Capitol is is displayed on a screen during a meeting of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol in the Canon House Office Building on Capitol Hill on December 19, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Al Drago/Getty Images)
This morning, the Washington Post published an article exploring why a draft 122-page report on social media prepared by investigators working for the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol was not published alongside the committee's final report, or with the underlying documents released to the public.
This afternoon, the article was updated with a link to the full draft report, which I ran through Adobe to recognize all of the text and characters in the document.
The report is the product of the committee's "Purple team," which considered "how the spread of misinformation and violent extremism contributed to the violent attack on our democracy, and what steps—if any—social media companies took to prevent their platforms from being breeding grounds for radicalizing people to violence," per language from the committee's Chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), last year. According to the legislation that established the January 6th Committee, the members were mandated to examine “how technology, including online platforms” such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Parler, Reddit, Discord, TheDonald[.]win and others “may have factored into the motivation, organization, and execution” of the insurrection.
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