Analyzing the Social Media Controversy of Nancy Pelosi: The Case of a Lossy Housemate and Senator Edward J. DePape

An associate professor of communications at the Lawrence Herbert School of Communication wrote about some issues affecting women and social media. She was spokeswoman for international affairs in the Treasury Department during the Obama administration. Her opinions are not shared in this commentary. View more opinion at CNN.

According to police and an FBI affidavit included in the criminal complaint, DePpe broke into the San Francisco home of Pelosi and went to the bedroom to confront her, claiming he wanted to talk to his wife. When Pelosi tried to call for help, she was witnessed by officers arriving on the scene. DePape hit him with a hammer.

The complaint also included an interview police did with DePape in which he admitted breaking into the house and said he surprised Pelosi. According to the complaint, DePape said that he wanted to hold Nancy Pelosi hostage because he viewed her as the leader of the pack of lies told by the Democratic Party.

A number of women politicians face an array of attacks and confrontations, including physical threats, because of the hatred they receive on the Internet. Social media platforms and law enforcement must act now to stop this abuse before a politician is gravely injured or killed.

The US Capitol Police investigated threats against members of Congress at a higher rate in the past two years. Many of the lawmakers on the receiving end of these threats are women and people of color.

After an assailant smashed a window in the home of Republican Sen. Susan Collins, she told The New York Times, “What started with abusive phone calls is now translating into active threats of violence and real violence.” She said, she wouldn’t be surprised if a lawmaker was killed.

A man with a handgun has repeatedly shown up outside her home in an attempt to intimidate her. Jayapal’s husband said he heard the voices of two men shouting obscenities and suggesting that they would stop harassing her neighborhood if she killed herself.

When we sign up for this job, we give up a lot of things. A person with a gun showing up to your door scaring neighbors and staff, and trying to intimidate you is hard to describe.

There are so many threats to the Democratic lawmaker of New York, that she has a round-the-clock security team and sometimes sleeps in different locations. Her colleague Paul Gosar of Arizona appeared in a video that looked like he was going to kill her. Gosar deleted the video and didn’t apologize. He was censured by the House and removed from two committee assignments after he retweeted a video about it.

The New York Post said that they had fired a rogue employee who changed the headline of an online editorial to read, “We must assassinate AOC for America.”

The Misogyny, Hate, and Improper Treatment of Women on Social Media During the January 6 Attack on Pelosi

Pelosi is a particular target of hatred among the right. In 2019, the House Speaker, who has famously clashed with Former President Donald Trump, became the subject of manipulated videos that made her appear as if she were stumbling over and slurring her words. Those videos were then amplified by both Trump and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani on social media, where they went viral. During the January 6 attack on the Capitol last year, Trump supporters shouted, “Where are you, Nancy?”, as they rampaged through her office.

They don’t tolerate this kind of hate. They are absolutely correct that it still exists on their platforms. They need to seriously use human and artificial intelligence to take down this abuse. Any time users see online hate like Gosar’s video, we should immediately use the available reporting tools so these social platforms can take it down.

Of course, it’s sobering that this attack on Pelosi happened just as Elon Musk has finalized his purchase of Twitter, given that Musk has indicated that he favors more lenient content moderation policies. If Twitter – or any other platform – becomes a bigger cesspool of misogyny and abuse, then users should make the decision to stop using it.

The abuse of women online and off should be investigated by the FBI. Congress should impose a tax against social networks to fund more funding for the agency. I imagine the many lawmakers who have been threatened and harassed would be happy to cast a vote in favor of such a bill.

Paul Pelosi vs. Steve Scalise: A Case Study in Political Hate, Insensitivity, and Political Insensitivity to Political Persequences

American politics is festering in violence, intimidation and inhumanity as another election looms amid escalating risks to political figures, all of which poses a grave threat to democracy.

Given such alarming statistics and the harrowing nature of the attack on Paul Pelosi – apparently just because his wife was a political leader – the natural response might be for those who may influence extremists to cool the temperature. But it is a mark of the unchained political times that while most Republicans condemned the attack, other right-wing influencers turned up the political outrage machine.

This version of events will be tested in court and it’s premature to link any specific piece of political rhetoric to what transpired. But the incident leaves extremist politicians who fling vitriol – yet refuse to take responsibility for their words – on ever more tenuous ground.

Miller-Idriss said that people are unable to discern what is true and what is not from misinformation from credible sources. “People are willing to accept conspiracy theories when they reinforce the narrative they already hold in their head.”

But the elevation of such conspiracies and insensitive commentary was not contained to the fringes on the internet; they also came from the likes of one of former President Donald Trump’s sons and Republican Kari Lake, who’s seeking the governorship of a key battleground in Arizona. Lake made a mockery of Paul Pelosi’s assault and the security at his home. Given America’s recent history of political violence, it is troubling that anyone could find humor in a physical attack.

It was the latest outburst of a climate of violence and harassment swamping modern politics. It took place less than two years after an unprecedented violent insurrection at the US Capitol rooted in Trump’s false claims of a stolen election. It followed a few months after a man was arrested and charged with attempting to murder conservative Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Five years ago, Steve Scalise was shot at a congressional baseball practice. The last time a lawmaker had a brain injury was more than 12 years ago.

The Paul Pelosi attack also took place against a backdrop of tension surrounding the midterm elections next week, including reports of groups monitoring voter drop boxes in Arizona. In August, the House select committee was told by a former Georgian poll worker that there were now no safe places to live after she became aware of Trump’s voter fraud conspiracy.

What do leaders say about violence against the government? And what do we really think about it? Sen. Ed Davis, former Boston police commissioner, and the Oath Keepers extremist activist, William Scott, c.m.,

34% of Americans and 40% of Republicans think that violence against the government is justified, according to a Washington Post poll taken around the anniversary of the insurrection.

“This attack goes to the core of our democracy and it can’t be just written off to some crazy person. Ed Davis, a former Boston police commissioner, told CNN on Monday what leaders say matters.

Trump, for instance, insisted in an interview that what happened was a “terrible thing” but was symptomatic of rising crime in American cities – a key Republican midterm election talking point.

The House committee on January 6 showed how Trump’s words of encouragement convinced the people who attacked the Capitol that he wanted it to happen. That impression was further underlined on Monday when a former member of the Oath Keepers extremist group told a jury that after the election, he felt a “sense of desperation and hopelessness” because he believed Trump’s claims that fraud was committed in the 2020 election.

Graydon Young is the first Oath Keeper to plead guilty in connection to January 6.

His comments underscored the power of inflammatory rhetoric coming from Trump, who has expressed support for political violence.

She said it was sad that people believe it is okay to use violence to express their political feelings.

Since the day of the attack, there have been at least 19,750 mentions of the words “Pelosi” and “gay”, getting a total of more than 700,000 likes, according to a CNN analysis.

San Francisco Police Chief William Scott told CNN that there was no evidence that Mr. Pelosi knew the man. The evidence indicates the opposite.

A conspiracy linked to Nancy Pelosi, who has long been a lightning rod for conservatives and played a starring role in GOP attack ads, was an especially appealing target for right-wing conspiracists, according to Cynthia Miller-Idriss, an American University professor who studies polarization and extremism.

Many of the theorists have latched on to a recording of a 911 dispatcher saying that Pelosi referred to DePape as “a friend” and “sounded somewhat confused.”

He said they spent a lot of energy pushing back ridiculous conspiracy theories to make sure people stay focused on their team. “These things are harmful to society, they’re harmful to the victims involved – it’s really sad that we are here in this place, but we are.”

The first widely shared account endorsing the theory appeared on Friday, the day of the attack.

Donald Trump, Jr., Sebastian Gorka, and Dinesh D-Souza were some of the conservative figures who endorsed the theory over the next few days. Rep. Clay Higgins, a Louisiana GOP congressman who sits on the House Homeland Security Committee, tweeted a photo of Nancy Pelosi and referred to DePape as a “male prostitute,” before deleting his tweet.

DePape’s posts on Facebook from last year endorse a litany of right-wing falsehoods. He posted fake videos produced by my pillow CEO that claimed the 2020 election was stolen, links to websites that said Covid vaccines were dangerous, and questioned the January 6, 2021 attack. CNN reviewed the posts before the social media company took the page down, and several of DePape’s relatives confirmed the page belonged to him.

Conspiracy theories were rampant in the months and years before the attack because of David DePape, who was steeped in conspiracy theories of his own.

According to Miller-Idriss, prominent figures carelessly spreading misinformation can lead to wider impacts on society.

“It’s dangerous because it undermines peoples’ sense of truth, it helps them further divorce from reality,” she said. They spread it further and then pass it on.