Last month, a onetime campaign aide to former President Donald J. Trump posted on Facebook, Twitter, Gab and other social media sites. For the first anniversary of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, he wrote, candlelight vigils would be held in 20 cities on Thursday to honor those who stormed the building.
“January 6th was America’s Tiananmen Square,” Matt Braynard, the former Trump campaign aide and founder of Look Ahead America, a right-wing organization, said in a post on Gab. “Join us in marking this lie with #J6vigils from coast to coast.”
The responses were sparse. Seventy-eight people liked the message, and 21 people shared it.
The post was an example of what right-wing groups and supporters of Mr. Trump are discussing to commemorate the Jan. 6 anniversary: scattered, local and most likely small gatherings. According to a review by The New York Times of recent posts from right-wing groups on sites including Facebook, Twitter, Gab and Gettr, online chatter about celebrations and rallies for the anniversary has grown in recent weeks, but the posts have not attracted much buzz and appear unlikely to translate into sizable real-world efforts on Thursday.
Many of the conversations online have instead centered on gatherings for specific groups in places such as Dallas and Phoenix. In Miami, a local chapter of the far-right Proud Boys said it planned to hold a protest on Thursday to honor those arrested after storming the Capitol, according to a post on the Telegram messaging app. In Beverly Hills, a group dedicated to protesting mask mandates said on Telegram that it planned a rally to rename Jan. 6 after Ashli Babbitt, who was killed by federal officers while storming the Capitol building.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/05/technology/jan-6-anniversary-social-media.html
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