Thread by @keikoinboston

1. I just saw the footage that’s being spread around from a protest in Portland on Saturday that people are claiming shows antifa directing traffic and yelling a drivers who won’t comply.

2. I spent 5 minutes Googling and reading news articles to find out that the protesters seem to have been part of a protest following a fatal police shooting on 9/30/18 in which some claim the man was unarmed. Police say he was armed.

opb.org/news/article/p…

3. One of the videos going around doesn’t show that the elderly white driver who was chased down the street did so after driving through a crowd of protesters with one directly in front of his car.

https://twitter.com/keikoinboston/status/1049400713351221248

4. The videos certainly raise questions about why there are civilians in the streets of Portland trying to direct traffic and screaming obscenities at drivers but at the moment this is looking to me like common-enemy fake news.

5. Portland PD were apparently at the protest but opted to not direct traffic and prevent drivers from driving into crowds of protesters. People should be asking why.

https://twitter.com/keikoinboston/status/1049403547706683393

6. Currently the only outlets characterizing these videos as antifa directing traffic are all right-leaning outlets engaging in churnalism. Follow the snowball. It appears that The Daily Wire was first, with no original reporting.

7. The Daily Wire reported on tweets from @MrAndyNgo who shared video from @FarleyFilms. Farley used the hashtag #antifa but didn’t explicitly say these specific protesters were antifa. Ngo characterized them as antifa.
dailywire.com/news/36856/ani…

@MrAndyNgo 8. Conservative Review wrote abouton Ngo’s tweets:
conservativereview.com/news/portland-…

followed by Hot Air (who at least included some reporting from local station KATU) & Breitbart:
hotair.com/archives/2018/…
breitbart.com/tech/2018/10/0…

@MrAndyNgo 9. Then Twitchy & MRCTV.
twitchy.com/sarahd-313035/…
mrctv.org/blog/portland-…

Not one word of original reporting in these 6 articles. All of them were generated off of Ngo’s tweets. By tomorrow there will be more.

@MrAndyNgo 10. Ngo has done some good original reporting in the past but at the moment this looks like misinformation. He tweeted videos from another journalist from a protest it doesn’t appear that he was present at, provided misleading context and now it’s “news”.

@MrAndyNgo 11. If you're thinking of sharing these videos (or any other viral vids lacking context or w/ partisan context) ask yourself what the utility of spreading such content is & whether or not the ppl who shared it are trying to make you fearful. If yes, fearful of what or whom & why?

12. It occurs to me that part of what might be going on here is a conflation of the antifa movement and black bloc protesters. Obviously there’s some overlap and also, not everyone dressed in black at a protest is antifa or black bloc.

13.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_bloc

Video from LA Times explaining the difference:

14. Something else I forgot to point out — The Daily Wire & Breitbart used old file photos with antifa dressed in black bloc in their articles which gives readers the misleading impression that those photos were related to the current story.

15. The Daily Wire at least used a file photo from Portland but it was from an 8/4/18 counter protest against a Joey Gibson campaign rally. Taken by Thomas Patternson & available via Getty Images for $450-$499.
gettyimages.com/detail/news-ph…

16. Breitbart used a file photo from a 9/27/17 counter protest against a Ben Shapiro speech at the University of Utah. Taken by George Frey & available via Getty Images for $450-$499.
gettyimages.com/detail/news-ph…
sltrib.com/news/education…

17. @KOINNews got an interview with the driver who says protesters attacked him when he asked them to move but they also report that the “Walk” sign was lit.

https://twitter.com/KOINNews/status/1049435829427408896

@KOINNews 18. @KOINNews also asked police why they didn’t intervene. The answer: 1A.

Also, KOIN refers to them as “protesters”, not "antifa”.

koin.com/news/civic-aff…

19. I just realized that I should have pointed out that there was other context stripped from the tweets/articles about when/where the incidents in the viral videos took place.

20. Ngo tweeted videos out of order and w/o context on location. First tweet of his was 6pm on 10/6/18 at SW 4th and Harvey Milk St. followed by a video shot at 4pm at SW 4th and Salmon. Yet some people think they were shared in chronological order and were at same location.

21. This is yet another problem with outlets engaging in churnalism, not going to the original source (Farley instead of Ngo), and not doing any original reporting.

22. I thought I would provide some more context for the Portland “antifa” traffic videos. Still seeing people claiming that the “first” video (shot at 6pm) provides context for the "second” (shot at 4pm). Videos were shot 6 blocks & 2 hours apart.

23. The 4pm video -may- provide context for the hostility of the 6pm video although it’s unclear if it does. I didn’t see any of the same people in both videos although it’s difficult to tell since the 6pm video is shaky at times.

24. For those claiming that it’s never legal to protest in the streets, you can in fact get a permit to march in the streets in Portland (and most likely other cities). No media outlet has reported yet if this particular protest was permitted, however.

portlandoregon.gov/transportation…

25. Brandon Farley has released some additional video. He went upstairs in a nearby building. Shows 2 motorcycle cops about a block away from where protesters were directing traffic at what I think is SW 4th & SW Harvey Milk St. Also shows police SUV.

https://twitter.com/FarleyFilms/status/1049585307631333376

26. Portland PD told local NBC affiliate @KGWNews that they didn’t intervene because it could have made the situation worse.
kgw.com/article/news/l…

Note that this is different from the 1A explanation they gave to KOIN (see tweet #18).

27. Also has echoes of President George Bridges (his explanation for standing down Evergreen’s Police Services on 5/24/17—the Library Building hostage takeover — was that bringing in police could have made the situation more dangerous).

https://twitter.com/BretWeinstein/status/1049326840752427009

28. I’m fairly certain the source on that was the 6/20/17 Washington Senate Law & Justice Committee Work Session on Campus safety at the Evergreen State College. Don’t have time to look for the timestamp.

tvw.org/watch/?eventID…

29. Wish I could remember where I’d read some stuff on best practices in policing protests last year. Perhaps @PeterMoskos could weigh in.

@PeterMoskos 30. I recall reading that keeping both “sides” separated is key to keeping the peace although I think it was referring to stationery protest (ie: in a park) where there’s protest & counter protest.

@PeterMoskos 31. Much harder if people are protesting the police in a mobile protest & taking it out on the public.

32. Great example of common-enemy identity politics that the Portland "antifa" traffic directing videos are being spun into + cognitive distortions. Links on these concepts below.

33. Here’s a January op-ed about common-enemy identity politics and how people use it to divide the US.
seattletimes.com/opinion/common…

34. Appendix 1 of @glukianoff & @JonHaidt's “The Coddling of the American Mind” includes “Categories of Distorted Automatic Thoughts” from Leahy, et al (2012)
Pdf I dug up online (p. 277 of Coddling):
lse.ac.uk/intranet/stude…

35. As of tonight, looks like more than a dozen right-leaning outlets have jumped on the churnalism mill generated by Ngo’s tweets. (L)

Meanwhile, local media are all over the story about the incident with the Lexus at SW 4th & SW Harvey Milk St. w/ original reporting. (R)

36. @KATUNews identifies one of the march organizers as Teressa Raiford and says she was on hand at the Lexus incident and tried to stop the driver from driving through the protesters.
katu.com/news/local/dri…

37. Other recent media reports identify her organization as Don’t Shoot Portland, a police accountability group that she founded.
dontshootpdx.org
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_S…

38. Don’t Shoot Portland organized the 10/6/18 Kimmons protest with a group called Communities Against Racism Standing Up For Black Lives.
facebook.com/events/5457008…
archive.is/vN61t

facebook.com/NeighborsAgain…
archive.is/gq9sk

39. Raiford is running for mayor of Portland in 2020. She became a community organizer after her nephew was killed. No platform on her campaign site, but you can read her bio here:
teressaraifordformayor.com/my-story/

40. So, neither of the two groups that organized the protest are antifa groups. Antifa may have been present & there may be overlap, but I stand by my original criticism that Ngo & others created/perpetuated a common-enemy identity politics fake news churnalism narrative.

41. Unfortunately, most people are never going to see this context because it’s absent from Ngo’s tweets and the many articles on right-leaning websites that are going viral.

42. @BretWeinstein wrote a thoughtful thread earlier today exploring the problems with the behavior in the videos which are antisocial at best and illegal at worst.

https://twitter.com/BretWeinstein/status/1049767043333910529

@BretWeinstein 43. I think Bret’s thread is pretty good given the facts currently available, although doesn’t really probe the mayor’s hands off approach.

I think the ire is misdirected at the protesters since ultimately it’s the city’s job to maintain law & order.