Alt-tech platforms employ loosercontent moderation and stronger privacy protections than mainstream platforms. They describe themselves as protectors offree speech andindividual liberty,[1][2][3][4] though some researchers have also pointed out such platforms' potential use for recruitment and mobilization by extremist groups.[5][6]
Alt-tech websites were first described in the 2010s. Starting around 2015, some prominentconservatives and their supporters began to use alt-tech platforms because they had beenbanned from other social media platforms.[7][8][9][1]. They became popular leading up to the early 2020s due todeplatforming, banning (includingshadow banning), and other restrictions imposed on extremists byBig Tech companies. Someright-wing groups claim that these companies censor their views.[10][1] After theUnite the Right rally in August 2017, technology companies such asGoogle,Facebook, andTwitter were criticized for deplatformingwhite supremacists.[11]Hope not Hate researcher Joe Mulhall identified the deplatforming ofBritain First in 2018, andTommy Robinson in 2019, as two major events that spurred British social media users to join alternative platforms.[8][12][13] Ethan Zuckerman and Chand Rajendra-Nicolucci further referenced the August 2018 deplatforming of conspiracy theoristAlex Jones as a pivotal moment.[14]
In October 2018, alt-tech platformGab received extensive public scrutiny following thePittsburgh synagogue shooting, after it was found that the sole suspect of the attack, Robert Gregory Bowers, had posted a message on Gab before the shooting, indicating an immediate intent to cause harm.[15][16] Bowers had a history of making extreme,antisemitic postings on the site.[17] After the shooting, Gab briefly went offline when it was dropped by its hosting provider and denied service by several payment processors.[18][19][20]
The popularity of alt-tech platforms surged in January 2021, when United States presidentDonald Trump, and many of his prominent followers, were suspended from Twitter and other platforms.Parler, a website with a large proportion of Trump supporters among its userbase, was taken offline whenAmazon Web Services suspended its hosting several days after theJanuary 6 storming of the United States Capitol.[21] It was restarted with a new host on February 15, 2021.[22]
In July 2021, an example of alt-tech hardware was announced: the "Freedom Phone" – asmartphone that promoted privacy-oriented features and an "uncensorable" app store. It was found that the device was merely awhite-label version of a Chinese smartphone produced byUmidigi, with a modifiedAndroidfirmware pre-loaded with apps popular among the target audience, and a rebranded version of anopen source client forGoogle Play Store (rather than the independent app store implied in its promotional materials).[23][24]
By 2022,The New York Times andThe Guardian described a crowded marketplace of alt-tech platforms.[25][26]The Times noted that alt-tech platforms claiming censorship by Twitter – such asGettr, Parler, and Rumble – have mostly advertised themselves on Twitter.[25]
In February 2022, Trump launched a Twitter alternative,Truth Social, after establishing a messaging platform outside of Twitter,[25][26] such as a now discontinued Trump blog.[27] During development, Truth Social did not at first acknowledge usingMastodon's open source code, and was given an ultimatum by Mastodon,[28] quietly admitting to the use of Mastodon code later on.[28][29][30] Truth Social's launch was accompanied by substantial technical difficulties.[31][29] The platform's terms of service include an incongruous clause that users may not "disparage, tarnish, or otherwise harm, in our opinion, us and/or the Site."[29][32] According to a report from consumer rights groupPublic Citizen, alt tech platforms with a supposed focus on free speech include the censorship of some liberal and conservative viewpoints, as well as the routinecontent moderation on other platforms, creating an "echo chamber". Based on the report, Truth Social was found toshadowban users that disagree with the site's narrative as well as a swathe of other content including some conservative content. "Truth Social" has banned content mentioning liberal views onabortion and theCongressional hearings on the January 6th Capitol attack.[33][34][35]
Deen Freelon and colleagues, publishing inScience in September 2020, wrote that some alt-tech websites are specifically dedicated to servingright-wing communities, naming4chan (founded in 2003),8chan (2013),Gab (2016),BitChute (2017) andParler (2018) as examples. They noted that others were more ideologically neutral, such asDiscord andTelegram.[10] Discord and Telegram have been used byQAnonconspiracy theorists to promoteterrorism, which contributed to theJanuary 6th attack.[5] Discord later worked to remove right-wingextremists from its userbase, and became a more mainstream platform.[36] Joe Mulhall, a senior researcher for the UKanti-racism organizationHope not Hate, also distinguishes groups of alt-tech platforms: he says that some of them, such as DLive and Telegram, are "co-opted platforms" which have become widely popular among the far-right because of their minimal moderation; others including BitChute, Gab, and Parler are "bespoke platforms" which were created by people who themselves have "far-right leanings".[37]Ethan Zuckerman and Chand Rajendra-Nicolucci, in contrast, described alt-tech services in explicitly political terms in a 2021 article for theKnight First Amendment Institute atColumbia University:
We use the alt-tech term to refer to platforms that offer a promise of uncensored speech, which exist specifically to give a space for far-right, nationalist, racist, or extremist points of view, and which harbor a broad sense of grievance that speech has been "censored" for failure to be "politically correct." Many, but not all of these alt-tech sites are far-right communities.
Researchers have also found that alt-tech platforms can also be used by far-right extremists for mobilization and recruitment purposes, which is more dangerous than just spreading their viewpoints.[6]
Austrian researcherJulia Ebner has described alt-tech platforms as "ultra-libertarian".[38]
^abDonovan, Joan; Lewis, Becca; Friedberg, Brian (2018). "Parallel Ports: Sociotechnical Change from the Alt-Right to Alt-Tech". In Fielitz, Maik; Thurston, Nick (eds.).Post-Digital Cultures of the Far Right: Online Actions and Offline Consequences in Europe and the US.Bielefeld,Germany: Transcript Verlag. pp. 49–66.doi:10.14361/9783839446706-004.ISBN978-3-8394-4670-6.
^Fielitz, Maik; Thurston, Nick (2018).Post-digital cultures of the far right : online actions and offline consequences in Europe and the US. Bielefeld [Germany]: Transcript Verlag.ISBN978-3-8394-4670-6.OCLC1082971164.
