His message was shared nearly 16,000 times.Īfter The Times contacted him, Mr. “If a defeated Biden does not concede and his party’s rioters take to the streets in a coup attempt against President Trump, will the military be needed to stop them?” tweeted Mr. They also said his supporters would riot. Biden would not concede if he lost the election. In one version, right-wing commentators claimed, without proof, that Mr. Anton did not respond to a call for comment.
Right-wing news sites such as The Federalist and DJHJ Media ramped up coverage of the idea, as did Mr. It was posted more than 500 times on Facebook and reached 4.9 million people, according to CrowdTangle, a Facebook-owned analytics tool. His article was the tipping point for the coup claim. 4 in the conservative publication The American Mind, claiming, “Democrats are laying the groundwork for revolution right in front of our eyes.” Michael Anton, a former national security adviser to President Trump, also published an essay on Sept. Trey Grayson, a Republican former secretary of state of Kentucky and a member of the Transition Integrity Project, said the idea that the group was preparing a left-wing coup was “crazy.” He said the group had explored many election scenarios, including a victory by Mr. That same day, Infowars, a conspiracy theory website, also published a piece claiming that retired Army officers were openly talking about a coup by Democrats. 12, which got 619 likes and comments and linked to the letter. “Bootlickers Nagl and Yingling suggest a violent military coup,” read one post on Facebook on Aug. Some online commentators seized on the letter as evidence of a coming left-wing coup. Trump from the White House grounds if he lost the election and refused to leave. Yingling asked General Milley to have military forces ready to escort Mr. Milley, according to researchers at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a London-based research organization. 11 letter from two former military officers, John Nagl and Paul Yingling, to the country’s top military official, Gen. The unfounded claim traces back to an Aug.
It has made its way into at least 938 Facebook groups, 279 Facebook pages, 33 YouTube videos and hundreds of tweets, a Times analysis found.
YouTube said it was not recommending videos containing the false rumors, while Twitter said sharing links to disputed news stories was permitted if the tweets did not violate its rules.Įven so, the idea of a Democrat-led coup has gained plenty of traction online in recent weeks. Of the lies, Facebook said it was “removing calls for interference or violence at polling places” and would label posts that sought to delegitimize the results. On Friday, Twitter executives urged people “to recognize our collective responsibility to the electorate to guarantee a safe, fair and legitimate democratic process this November.” Twitter said it was changing some basic features to slow the way information flowed on its network. Facebook barred groups and posts related to the pro-Trump conspiracy movement QAnon and said it would suspend political advertising postelection. Facebook and Twitter took steps last week to clamp down on false information before and after the vote. Social media companies appear increasingly alarmed by how their platforms may be manipulated to stoke election chaos.
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