By Anna Shecter - NBC News
Right-wing radicals are sharing through encrypted message applications information on
processes to manufacture, hide and use homemade weapons and bombs
, promoting calls for violence against government officials on January 20, the day of the seizure. President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration.
Thousands of radical supporters of the outgoing president, Donald Trump, have resorted to communicating with their peers through the
social network Telegram
, after Facebook and Twitter suspended the president's account in an attempt to curb hate speech and content that instigate violence.
This after the assault on the Capitol, which Trump himself incited.
Amazon, Apple and Google also chose to eliminate Parler, a platform on which numerous Trump supporters were gathering in the days after the assault on the United States Capitol.
The large internet companies explained that the measure was due to the fact that the network in question, financed by the conservative Rebekah Mercer, does not exercise sufficient control to prevent calls for criminal activities.
Trump is not alone on the list of people kicked out of networks
like Facebook, Reddit, Twitter or YouTube for repeatedly breaking rules and inciting hatred.
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and far-right activist Milo Yiannopoulos also appear on that list, forcing many extremists to seek new options for spreading their messages.
[FBI and NYPD warned Capitol security about the possibility of violence]
In recent days,
a US Army field manual
was published on a Telegram channel bearing the word "fascist" in its name
, accompanied by exhortations to "shoot politicians" and "encourage armed struggle."
These chat rooms have been rife with white supremacy content for months, but now they are seeing a significant increase in activity.
"When you start asking for assassinations and taking actions instead of sharing information, it becomes a major threat," said Chris Sampson, who is the head of research for the TAPSTRI (Asymmetry Project on Radical Strategy, Tactics and Ideologies for its acronym in This group is focused and concerned about the users of the aforementioned channel and has already alerted the FBI about it (TAPSTRI is led by Malcolm Nance, a terrorism analyst at NBC News.)
Documents shared through the chat's file manager include a "US Army Explosives and Demolitions Manual and" US Army Engineer Course, "as well as white supremacy content.
A post explaining
how to radicalize neo-Nazism
has also circulated on far-right channels.
"Help!": New images of the moment a pro-Trump mob attacks the police to storm the Capitol
Jan. 8, 202102: 56
However, the radicals are aware that they are under scrutiny, which is why they have been using coded online platforms to rearrange their tactics.
The FBI sent a memo Monday to law enforcement agencies, warning of possible armed protests in all 50 state Capitols beginning January 16.
In response, some Trump supporters with extremist views have used
encrypted platforms
to push for the abandonment of local protests in the coming days;
for the purpose of increased face-to-face participation during Biden's inauguration in Washington on January 20.
"Do not attend the armed protests in the State Capitol before the inauguration! Possible sinister plot by the radical left to take away gun rights!"
posted a user in a Telegram chatroom with thousands of far-right sympathizers planning a “Round 2” on Inauguration Day in DC
[Right wing extremists vow to return to Washington DC for Joe Biden's inauguration]
Experts say that people banished from large online platforms
receive less attention than they had before being suspended
, and that followers who regroup on other networks after these types of decisions do so in fewer numbers.
"It's likely to have a much smaller reach than it did on Twitter," said Manoel Horta Ribeiro, a doctoral student who has researched extremism online at the Swiss university
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne.
Without a megaphone to spread his views on social media,
Trump would find it difficult to influence other outlets
or find new people to build his audience.
Its most inveterate faithful, however, will inevitably find a place to communicate and organize, experts say.
[Amazon, Apple and Google turn off the Parler app after the assault on the Capitol: it was the alternate megaphone of Trump supporters]
Telegram is the favorite
News and content intended to inspire Trump supporters are still being seen on major social media.
A video about the alleged electoral fraud was published on YouTube for 12 hours, in which dramatic music accompanied fragments of Trump's speeches intertwined with biblical verses.
The video, which
prompted Trump supporters to protest
, was recently removed for "violating YouTube community standards."
Meanwhile, there are
multiple Telegram channels for the right-wing group called
Proud Boys
, racking up as many as 28,000 users on one of them.
"Now that they have forced us to leave the main platforms it does not mean that we are going to disappear, it just means that we are going to go to places that they do not see," wrote a user posted in a chat that was renamed to attract people's attention that the measures against Parler claim.
More than 10 social media platforms have blocked Donald Trump's profiles
Jan. 12, 202100: 15
The number of members of that chat has increased by more than 10,000 in the last few days.
In September, the chat room had 1,365 members.
Instead, it received 15,990 new members on Monday alone, according to Megan Squire, a computer science professor at Elon University and a fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which researches extremism online.
Another channel intended for
Proud Boys
has gained 8,870 followers since January 6, an increase of 54%.
All of Parler's public messages have been collected by an investigator using Twitter user @donk_enby.
Radical groups on Telegram argued about it on Monday, lamenting that there is no way to retroactively erase the messages or identifying information.
Gab, another platform favored by the far-right, was also offline on Monday.
[Two Capitol Police officers are suspended after the assault. Trump and Pence meet for the first time after the violent events]
Squire said that when extremists are forced to switch from one platform to another "it creates an opportunity" for them to "make mistakes and reveal identifying information."
But Frank Figliuzzi, former deputy director of the FBI and national security analyst at NBC News, said he
is concerned about the double-edged sword when a platform
known for harboring extremists
is shut
down.
"We were successful with ISIS when we removed their command site, but we also removed the ability to see the next lone wolf. We forced them into the dark corners of the internet," Figliuzzi said.
"History repeats itself. We saw that with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram, they knocked out these guys and boom, where are they now?"
