Thread by @HamptonStall

Sharing my first piece in the @guardian, co-authored with @onthemedia's @MicahLoewinger. It covers Capitol stormers’ use of @Zello’s free walkie-talkie application, which boasts over 150 Million users:
theguardian.com/us-news/2021/j…

Much to cover in this story but first some background. In Sept, @MicahLoewinger and I did some joint work on the app and how it was used by militia groups in Georgia around BLM protests. Here’s the @onthemedia piece:
wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/s…

With this joint project on Zello, we also worked on developing a social network of the high-authority users (owners, admins, mods) of the far-right channels we were looking at. This analysis was then visualized and published on @MilitiaWatch, here: militia.watch/read/zello-ope…

There’s been further reporting on Zello and how it interacts with other media platforms that provide safe haven to the far-right + militias, including this crucial work by @SarahNEmerson of @ozm, which had this bold claim from Zello’s CEO:
onezero.medium.com/banished-from-…

Here's a chance to repeat that @MicahLoewinger and I sent Zello a spreadsheet with 223 militia, Proud Boys, and Nazi channels. In a later email to us, the CEO confirmed he had listened to the OTM piece and read the MW piece, the latter featuring this graph made with @kumupowered

Back to the Capitol: Over on @MilitiaWatch, there’s a thread on militia presence at the US Capitol Building by timestamp, location, and group affiliation. All available here:

https://twitter.com/MilitiaWatch/status/1347606872531021827

So there are multiple clips referenced in the @guardian piece we put together but one militia member, "OhioRegularsActual – Oathkeeper", who claims on Zello recordings to have been inside the dome was ID'd by @jake_zuckerman earlier today:
citybeat.com/news/blog/2114…

Ahead of the 2020 US Election, @chick_in_kiev put out a Twitter thread about specifically Oath Keepers channels on the app, which had nearly half a million impressions on the top-level tweet at time of @MicahLoewinger and I writing:

https://twitter.com/chick_in_kiev/status/1322258659980812288

And @chick_in_kiev ended up being right on the money with the Oath Keepers + Zello connection around election violence because Jessica "OhioRegularsActual – Oathkeeper" Watkins claimed membership in the SPLC-designated group!

As part of this story, @MicahLoewinger and I sent Zello a spreadsheet of 856 far-right channels that were online at the time of sending (some channels cited in the piece itself have deleted themselves out of fears of prosecution, it seems). Many of them still remain online.

Zello informed us right at the end of the 24 hour period for comment that they were "prepared to take action" and are preparing a "more elaborate response" later. If you're looking for this update, I'm betting it's going to show up here:
blog.zello.com

Update from @Zello on their blog:

https://twitter.com/MicahLoewinger/status/1349527808368902150?s=19