The insurrection and violence that took place on January 6th is the result of not understanding that online is real life.

A thread...

This notion that online is real life is something I have continuously tried to push in my little corner of the world: by speaking to people in government, in law enforcement, in various organizations and companies – really to anyone that will listen.

It started years ago when I had an alarming conversation with NYPD. They had trouble believing that an online threat was a “real life” threat. But if someone had mailed the same threatening words verbatim to someone else, it would have been considered a threat in their eyes.

Because the method of communication was over the internet, the cops thought that these threats weren’t a big deal.

(Not mentioning that the cops didn't really understand what a tweet was, but that's a topic for another day.)

I am not surprised that people showed up to “storm the capital” on January 6th. It is not surprising to me that among those people were neo-Nazis, members of hate groups, and accelerationists.

What is surprising was how categorically unprepared local law enforcement was on Wednesday when thousands of public accounts online were posting, tweeting, and streaming that they were going to “storm the capital.”

Online is real life.