President Donald Trump’s online supporters are scattering on smaller social media platforms, fleeing what they say is unfair treatment by Facebook, Twitter and other big tech companies that want to raise misinformation and threats from violence.
According to social media and misinformation experts, the efforts of these conventional platforms, motivated by the deadly assassination at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, will be successful. But the crackdown could cause some of Trump’s fiercest supporters to retreat to dark, secret spaces on the Internet, where conspiracy theories and violent rhetoric are rampant.
“We will see fewer opportunities to radicalize new people” on conventional platforms, Kate Starbird, a senior misinformation expert at the University of Washington, said Wednesday. “But for those who are already radicalized or who already have a rabbit with conspiracy theories, this may not change the difference if the places they go become echo chambers.”
For years, major technology companies had been the target of conservative anger, with complaints that Facebook and Twitter are implementing their policies with a political bias. Platforms have also been criticized for allowing harmful conspiracy theories and hate speech to thrive on their sites.
Then came an unprecedented response from tech companies to the Capitol Uprising, fueled in part by fake and misleading posts on social media that undermined faith in the U.S. election. Twitter banned Trump’s account, as well as 70,000 accounts associated with the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory. Facebook and Instagram suspended Trump until the end of his term and fraudulently withdrew posts claiming that the U.S. election was stolen. Snapchat also banned Trump, and on Wednesday, YouTube suspended its channel for at least a week.
Some conservative users had briefly found refuge in Parler, only to see how the conservative alternative to Facebook darkens on Monday when Amazon stopped providing hosting services. Parler sued Amazon over the ban; Amazon responded by arguing that the platform’s “unwillingness” to remove posts threatens public safety.
The crackdown caused many conservative posters to consider darker alternative platforms like Gab, which has been marketed to Trump supporters. Gab CEO Andrew Torba, who describes himself as an “American Christian and populist businessman,” reported Wednesday that 1.7 million users signed up in the past four days.
“This is where we defend our sacred primogeny bestowed by God and affirmed by our founding fathers,” read a comment shared by Torba.
Other platforms that attract Trump supporters include Signal and Telegram, messaging services that are already used by individuals and groups with different ideologies around the world, as well as a growing list of lesser-known platforms, such as Rumble, MeWe and CloutHub.
Telegram announced Wednesday that it had more than 500 million users, with more than 25 million registered since Sunday.
Several Trump social media stars banished from major platforms have launched their own channels into the service, gaining thousands of followers in a matter of days. A channel that claims to be run by Conservative attorney L. Lin Wood Jr., who filled Twitter with false claims about the election and asked Parler to assassinate Vice President Mike Pence, has gained more than 100,000 subscribers since the his first post was posted Monday. QAnon and far-right channels have also seen their membership increase by thousands this week.
Many of these smaller sites were already shelters for extremists and conspiracy theorists who have been kicked out of Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, said Jared Holt, a misinformation researcher at the Atlantic Council-based think tank. Washington.
“At worst, I could imagine that there is a potential for mass radicalization if crowds of people appear on the platforms that have been the terrain of extremist movements,” Holt said.
These platforms still have only a fraction of the audience that Facebook or Twitter have, which means it will be harder for conspiracy theorists and extremists to spread their message.
“There are trade-offs,” Starbird said of the platform’s crackdown: the spread of misinformation is lower than the general public, but it also carries the risk of concentrating misinformation in much smaller places with few rules and little or no moderation. of the content.
It is also possible that some of the far right will take more advantage of the encrypted and more secure messaging services offered by people like Signal, Telegram and WhatsApp, making it more difficult for investigators, journalists and government officials to check for signs of threats. to James Ludes, a former congressional defense analyst and misinformation expert who runs the Leather Center for International Relations and Public Policy at Salve Regina University.
“They’re still here,” Ludes said. “If we put all these people in the dark shadows of the Internet, they will continue to communicate, but the authorities will have more difficulty tracking them.”
Meanwhile, on marginal websites associated with the Boogaloo anti-government movement, planning for armed protests in state capitals continues. This talk around these protests is present on some social media, Holt said, and in an internal FBI newsletter this week warned of extremist threats at these events.
Organizers “still intend to move on,” Holt said. “It’s still unclear what we might expect in terms of participation.”