[nonce42]

> The riots were most likely political AstroTurf before an election

I noticed that that the BLM protests happened a few months before the 2016 election and then vanished. Then the same thing happened before the 2020 election.

To make this quantitative, here's a Google Trends link: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&ge...

[germinalphrase]

To be specific, the data shows Google search interest - not number of protest events.

Protests are not necessarily “newsworthy”; however, that search interest would track media stirring up news before elections seems likely.

Further, (and I say this as a Minneapolitan) the significant protests of this summer were very clearly and obviously precipitated by real world events, not astroturfed protest crowds.

[philwelch]

One question is why and how certain specific real-world events go viral and others get memory-holed.

I would surmise that a lot of the protests this summer were, emotionally, a consequence of the stress, economic uncertainty, and way-too-online cabin fever of the early stages of the COVID epidemic.

[trident5000]

You wouldnt believe how sophisticated the firms are that the dem party hires. They have their own versions of Cambridge Analytica which are more than capable of amplifying messages.

[philwelch]

I'd believe it. It would certainly explain a lot.