It's crucial. One thing that's come out in our research is a phenomena that I term “reciprocal radicalization”.
When we look at the events that occurred in the United States—the riots that occurred during the George Floyd protests and the January 6 events—we aren't really seeing two separate events. We're seeing one event.
What happened online was that we had competing memes or competing ideologies passing out disinformation about cops—that all cops are bastards—and that democracy was a failed experiment in imperialism. That was met with vigilante activity.
Those two forces—