Weeks of rhetoric online made the January 6 storming of the Capitol ‘entirely predictable’, experts say

Though this week’s violence in Washington DC was unprecedented, it had been predicted.

For weeks, Trump supporters have been using online platforms to openly plan the storming of the US Capitol building.

Questions are now being asked about why law enforcement appears to be have been caught unprepared and whether social media companies could have shut down these groups earlier or done more to de-escalate the violent rhetoric on their platforms.

Earlier this week, the extremism and disinformation research organisation Advance Democracy Inc (ADI) published a report warning that online pro-Trump violent rhetoric had spiked ahead of the January 6 pro-Trump rally in Washington DC.

Its analysis found a hubbub of activity on a relatively obscure…