Big Tech S3E5: Joan Donovan on How Platforms Enabled the Capitol Hill Riot

January 21, 2021

Listen to this week’s new episode of Big Tech, where Joan Donovan discusses how the recent attack on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, demonstrated how online disinformation, amplification and platform algorithms have real-world impacts.

During his term, President Donald Trump has vilified the media, spread mis- and disinformation and built a loyal base of followers who believe his message. His refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election, failed legal challenges and Stop the Steal campaign further rallied his supporters. The tipping point came on January 6, 2021, just as law makers were meeting at the Capitol to certify the election.

In this episode of Big Tech, Taylor Owen speaks with Joan Donovan, research director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University. Donovan studies social movements and their use of media and technology to spread their message. Social media platforms provide tools for individuals and groups to share information and organize, which has been valuable for societal movements such as Black Lives Matter and Standing Rock. But those same tools have been harnessed by bad actors aiming to incite destructive actions. In the case of the Make America Great Again movement, her team could see that those leading the Stop the Steal campaign were setting the stage for the Capitol attack. According to Donovan, “It’s about creating the conditions by which people feel [that] if they don’t do something, nothing will change.” As Donovan sees it, governments need to regulate and oversee the digital space because online activities have real-world effects. “I think everybody knows that people form communities online, and it’s in those bonds and in those spaces that people make decisions about, ‘Do I go to this protest or not?’ ‘Do I spend $400 to take a flight to DC to save Trump from the Democrats and Republicans?” … because I don’t think people make much of a distinction between ‘this is my online account for Patriot2467150’ and ‘my life.’”