San Francisco, United States.
Gab instead of Twitter, MeWe for Facebook, Telegram for messaging and Discord for insiders. Vetoed on major platforms, U.S. conspiracy and supremacist movements, many of which support Donald Trump, have moved into networks that are more confidential and harder to regulate.
“Trump’s most extreme supporters were already on alternative platforms,” said Nick Backovic, a researcher at Logically.AI, a company that specializes in network misinformation.
“The fact that Facebook and Twitter took so long (by banning them) allowed influential people to rebuild conversations and groups almost seamlessly.”
After the taking of the Capitol on the 6th of January in Washington, major social media took action against the organizations involved, such as Oath Keepers, Three Percenters, and Proud Boys.
Facebook intensified the purge of profiles linked to armed movements. Nearly 900 accounts were closed. Twitter permanently banned Trump and closed 70,000 accounts affiliated with QAnon, a group that maintains the theory that the former president is involved in a battle against an alleged “elite” made up of Satan-worshiping pedophiles.
“Demolition works,” said Jim Steyer, president of the Common Sense Media organization. “Now that Trump isn’t on Twitter, he’s lost the big speaker.”
Antivaccines
But millions of fervent extremists and conspiracy theorists refuse to stop, according to experts, who fear that censorship will unite some people of very different profiles.
“Look at the composition of QAnon, you have people who would traditionally join the militias. And you also have some traditional Republicans, you have yoga instructors and middle-class white women who take their kids to football,” Alex Goldenberg said. Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) research center analyst.
“There was a big difference between these conspiratorial communities and traditional Nazi communities or white supremacist communities. But it seems that, in the face of censorship, they are starting to merge into the same communities, because this is really the only place that the it remains to go, ”he said.
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Many are coming together under other banners, particularly the anti-vaccine movement. On the encrypted messaging platform Telegram, groups of tens of thousands of Trump supporters share false rumors about “depopulation vaccines,” including insults against U.S. President Joe Biden and immigrants.
In the eyes of the authorities, these message exchanges are similar to bar conversations or those at a family table. But while the expulsion from the main platforms has limited the ability to recruit from extremist movements, the embers burn under the ashes.
In late January, for example, a group of protesters disrupted the covid-19 vaccination process at a Los Angeles stadium. But the need to regulate alternative platforms clashes with moral and practical impositions. The limits of free speech are the subject of heated debate in the United States.
Digital “pollution”
Talk, One of the alternatives to Twitter preferred by conservatives, was out of service for several weeks because Google, Apple and Amazon had vetoed it for not moderating content that incited violence. But the platform was back online in mid-February.
Gab the MeWe, Facebook-like platforms saw their popularity explode in the wake of the January 6 Capitol attack. According to Goldenberg, the platforms are used primarily by people who need to express their frustration.
“There was no pandemic in 2020. The flu was used as a weapon to destroy the economy and steal the election (from Trump),” GAB user ILoveJesusChrist123 insisted in a comment to a statement by the former president published on the platform.
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Telegram is more conducive to action, through encrypted private groups. Firearms enthusiasts, on the other hand, interact on the MyMilitia.com forum.
Both networks have struggled to moderate publications, but do not have the necessary resources. “We need to think of the current movement as pollution. These groups grew in power and influence because they were able to operate freely on Facebook and Twitter,” said Emerson Brooking, an extremist and disinformation specialist for the group’s experts. Atlantic Council.
Brooking recommends that these platforms find ways to share moderator teams and digital resources.
The government should also intervene, says John Farmer of NCRI: “The government has a responsibility (…) to treat these platforms in the same way as, for example, essential things like water and electricity, and the media used to be treated as a public good, and therefore subject to reasonable regulation. “