Samantha Fagone is a graduate student at the University of Kentucky studying Applied Environmental and Sustainability Studies. Before that, she obtained her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Kentucky in Economics. For the past two years, Samantha has been a Coder and Researcher for the Prosecution Project, where she has conducted studies on accelerationism within the United States and crowd-sourced policing methods following the January 6 attack on the United States Capitol Building. Samantha’s research focuses on political violence, political economy, and policy modeling, and their intersections with extremism, markets, and the law.

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Following the attack on the United States Capitol Building on January 6, 2021, law enforcement charged more than 1,230 individuals. This historic flash of anti-democratic militancy underscored for many the fragility of contemporary democratic engagement and the need for greater protections. As evidence was released as to how these individuals were recognized, an unavoidable pattern emerged—many had been identified not by traditional investigative mechanisms, but by a public equipped with a robust social media architecture. After the attack, rioters utilized traditional social media platforms to post en masse about their attempt to undermine the 2020 presidential election and destabilize the peaceful transfer of power.

This political posturing on the part of rioters, however, served not only to signal an active distrust of government but also aided law enforcement and the wider public in identifying January 6th rioters and their methods of organization. After January 6th, social media directly informed the investigative process for federal officers to build cases against attackers. Supplementing traditional policing methods with crowd-sourced efforts, law enforcement was able to identify strategies of adversarial actors at the Capitol, expand gray zone activities, and coordinate with internet-based organizations to defend democracy.

This study examines this investigative process through the lens of traditional media, electronic social media, policing, and challenges to democratic engagement catalyzed by these technologies. Through the unique data set offered by the Prosecution Project (tPP), and with the aid of a team of tPP researchers, we have studied these +1,230 cases seeking to answer two central questions: 1. What can we learn about the defendants’ use of social media surrounding their January 6 activities and the role this played in the defendants’ prosecution?, and 2. What role did crowd-sourced policing play in the identification and prosecution of January 6 defendants? With democracy under increased pressure from hostile parties, this study documents the media patterns of antagonistic domestic actors and the role electronic platforms and their users play in defending against them.

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