How DLive, a platform owned by a Chinese cryptocurrency entrepreneur named Justin Sun, became the home for Capitol rioters.
Illustration by Luis Grañena
Listen to SupChina editor-at-large and Sinica podcast host Kaiser Kuo read this article.
Tim Gionet, a prominent far-right personality who calls himself “Baked Alaska,” was nearing the steps of the U.S. Capitol early this month, during what has now become an infamous day of rioting and violence, when a woman wearing a red “Connecticut for Trump” hat pulled him over.
“There’s Chinese writing over there,” she said, before launching into a loud cheer: “CCP Go home! CCP go home!” Gionet soon joined in with his own defiant chant: “Go back to China, CCP! Go back to China!”
This exchange is captured on Gionet’s 27-minute livestream from that day on DLive, a streaming site that has become popular among far-right activists. Along the side of the video, viewers posted their comments — “Chinese spy,” one declared — while every so often a ‘Lemon’ appeared, signifying that a viewer had tipped Gionet with the platform’s integrated crypto
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