Primary Research Question Understanding What were the social-media behavior Users Across and content patterns of users across Parler and Twitter that engaged in Parler and conversations leading up to the January 6th insurrection? Twitter

Digital Disinformation Extending to the Physical World

The social platform Parler was heavily utilized to communicate prior to the riots at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021 after being endorsed by President Trump and other conservative influencers. The platform provides a unique, primarily uncensored look at rhetoric around the 2020 election, including narratives culminated in many people taking part in the riots of January 6th. Contrasting Parler and Twitter use provides an educational look at the competing, highly- politicized use cases of two social media platforms that have increasingly become part of identity-based, politically conservative rhetoric. Methodology

Tracked 44 users from Parler to Twitter based on: Profile bios Profile pictures Post content URLs included in bios and posts Location data Dates active

After identifying users and preparing corpus of data, participants' posts and profiles on both Parler and Twitter were qualitatively coded, explored, and analyzed. Particular attention was given to posting around the 2020 election, BLM protests from the summer of 2020, and the weeks around January 6th. Analysis on Parler primarily ended January 11th, the date Parler was taken offline, but anyone active on Twitter was analyzed until the end of Janurary. Findings

Users believed heavily in election fraud claims on the surface, but these beliefs were preceded and supported by an intense distrust of established systems. The main targets of extreme distrust were: a.The media, primarily "mainstream media" loosely defined, but increasingly Fox (with the exception of influencers like Tucker Carlson) and other conservative sources that didn't fall in line b."Big tech", primarily represented by Twitter and Facebook c.Government writ large, usually spoken about as democratic politicians but in truth represented by any governmental system that did not support their current beliefs - including any Republicans that broke from Trump. Q influence: the overlap between Qanon rhetoric and more mainstream conservative rhetoric is substantial, making it difficult to tell who is a Q supported and who is not. Even amongst those who claim Q is not to be believed, their views adopted QAnon rhetoric and in some cases they became Q supporters.