The loose to nonexistent moderation they advertise can also create hothouse environments where participants ramp each other up, and where spam, hate speech and harmful misinformation blooms. While Facebook and Twitter serve a diverse general audience, the far-right platforms cater to a smaller slice of the population. Capitol last year, while research showsfar-right groups are harnessing COVID-19 conspiracy theories to expand their audience. “If far-right platforms are becoming a venue to coordinate illegal activity - for example, the Capitol insurrection - this is a significant problem,” she said.įalsehoods about the 2020 election fueled the deadly attack on the U.S.
While new platforms may be good for consumer choice, they pose problems if they spread harmful misinformation or hate speech, said Alexandra Cirone, a Cornell University professor who studies the effect of misinformation on government. It saw the most monthly installs in November 2020 when it hit 5.6 million. Parler launched in August 2018, but it didn’t start picking up until 2020. Some experts are concerned that they’ll fuel extremism and calls for violence even if they never replicate the success of the mainstream sites.Īpp analytics firm SensorTower estimates that Parler’s app has seen about 11.3 million downloads globally on the Google and Apple app stores, while Gettr has reached roughly 6.5 million. While these budding platforms are mounting some ideological competition against their dominant counterparts, they have also become havens for misinformation and hate. “Go back to Africa,” wrote one woman with a swastika in her profile.Ī year after Trump was banned by Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, a rowdy assortment of newer platforms have lured conservatives with promises of a safe haven free from perceived censorship. The responses were predictable - more Nazi imagery and crude racial slurs.
“They are destroying Gab and scaring away all the influential people who would make the platform grow.” “If you want Gab to succeed then something has to be done,” Anderson, who is Black, wrote in a recent Gab post. It included Nazi imagery, racist slurs and other extreme content that goes way beyond anything allowed on major social media platforms. A counterprotester knocked his teeth out.īut even Anderson was repulsed by some of the stuff he saw on Gab, a social media platform that’s become popular with supporters of former President Donald Trump. Two years ago, Anderson organized a “free speech” protest against the big tech companies. His conservative posts have gotten him kicked off Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Philip Anderson is no fan of online content moderation.
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