Op-ed by Jessica Marie Baumgartner | Photo: Alamy
Tucker Carlson released footage on Monday of what happened at the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021.
The videos do not display a violent mob of unruly usurpers, but a mostly peaceful group of protestors — some even being led around the building by police.
Those of us who were on alternative social media sites know these images well. Livestreams on many platforms were fully available that day and displayed the entire picture.
Unfortunately, within 24 hours most of these videos were gone. Broken links and banned accounts became a commonality despite Americans’ constitutional right to freedom of speech.
Per CBS News, YouTube had already begun banning accounts with any content questioning election integrity before the events of Jan. 6. In December 2020 the Google-owned platform announced new rules and began removing videos and even banning content creators who simply wished to discuss concerns regarding election irregularities.
Online censorship was allowed under the guise that social media sites are “private companies” which can essentially impose whatever rules they wish, regardless of what rights they are violating.
After Jan. 6, even President Donald Trump was censored and banned from Twitter, via NBC News. Once his tweets urging protestors to remain peaceful were removed from the public eye, politicians and media figures ran with the narrative that Jan. 6 was an orchestrated insurrection headed by President Trump.
Various conservative accounts were suspended or even banned for supporting the president or questioning the results of the 2020 election. About 70,000 accounts were banned in January 2021 alone, per The Verge.
In addition, James O’Keefe was curiously banned after he revealed a video where a CNN staff member admitted that their network published “propaganda” aimed at ruining President Trump’s 2020 election bid, yet no detailed reason for the banishment was officially released, according to the New York Post.
For over two years, select footage and details were circulated to perpetuate a specific narrative, that Jan. 6 was a planned insurrection and the people involved were criminals. Now that all of the footage is being released, the truth is becoming known.
Most of the protestors displayed in the footage were peaceful and respectful, but many Americans would never have known that if these tapes had not been made public because so many videos and accounts displaying this were suspended or banned. Even the Jan. 6 Committee itself was censored by YouTube in June 2022, according to Breitbart.
While the new video images portray a broader spectrum of events, the mainstream media continues to claim that Jan. 6 was a violent riot. NBC claims that Tucker Carlson’s new report is false. The Huffington Post reported that he went so far as to “cherry-pick” evidence.
Meanwhile, select Americans who were at the Capitol Building on Jan. 6 are still in prison. President Trump remarked on their situation on Truth Social, “LET THEM GO FREE, NOW!” per RSBN.
Whether this new information will sway current investigations is unclear. What is known is that the public was not offered the whole truth, so the “insurrection” lie was able to circulate on social media unchecked.
