Assessing Parler's Letter Documenting Warnings It Gave FBI of Jan. 6 Attack

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

Tweet text:
Just Security
@just_security
.@justinhendrix parses the 12-Parler letter that shows
its communications with the FBI and specific warnings the company gave of threats of violence on #Jan6.

"Did Facebook, Twitter or YouTube send such warnings?"

Assessing Parler’s Letter Documenting Warnings It Gave FBI of Jan. 6 Attack
The 12-page letter’s details deepen existing questions and raise new ones about the FBI's intelligence failures before the attack.
justsecurity.org
8:27 AM · Jun 29, 2021

https://www.justsecurity.org/77253/assessing-parlers-letter-documenting-warnings-it-gave-fbi-of-jan-6-attack/

One of the significant moments in the recent House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing on the Jan. 6 insurrection was the revelation that the social media platform Parler had sent several specific warnings to the FBI of potential violence in DC well in advance of the day. The letter that Parler provided the Committee laying out what it told the FBI is now a part of the January 6 Clearinghouse at Just Security. The letter’s details are significant. They deepen existing questions and raise new ones about the FBI’s intelligence failures before the attack.

Following multiple hearings at which FBI Director Christopher Wray has testified about what intelligence the Bureau acquired, analyzed, and shared in advance of January 6, it remains unclear why the FBI was so unprepared for the violence, particularly given the prevalence of social media posts across a variety of platforms that indicated the potential for such activity. The existence of specific warnings from Parler — a site popular with former President Trump’s supporters — was the first public confirmation that a social media platform had sent such specific notices to the FBI.

While Parler’s letter to the congressional committee has been referenced in news reports, the full content is remarkable for several reasons:

1) Parler took its response to the Committee’s request for voluntary production of information as an opportunity to address what it called “absurd conspiracy theories” about its platform. The 12-page letter it sent asserts that “Big Tech” engaged in “a coordinated and widespread disinformation campaign designed to scapegoat Parler for the riots at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, and to justify Big Tech’s unlawful and anticompetitive decision to de-platform Parler just when Parler was beginning to grow in size and strength, thereby presenting a viable threat to Big Tech’s stranglehold on social media.” Citing a poll that suggests many Americans believe tech platforms engage in politically biased censorship and a report that Amazon signed a contract to provide web hosting services to Twitter in proximity to Amazon’s decision to cancel hosting of Parler, Parler asserts the more prominent social media platforms and Amazon “colluded” to interrupt Parler’s growth, which it said threatened the hegemony of firms such as Facebook.

*snip*

[harumph]

1. Parler's "beard" of a letter.