Alt-tech

Alt-tech is a group of websites, social media platforms, and Internet service providers which have become popular among the alt-right, far-right, and others who espouse extreme or fringe opinions.

This article is about websites and platforms that position themselves as alternatives to mainstream offerings. For environmentally-friendly technologies, see alternative technology.

Overview

Some alt-tech services have less stringent content moderation policies which have attracted users who were banned or restricted from more mainstream services, while some alt-tech services have been created specifically to cater to extremist users. In the 2010s, some conservatives banned from other social media platforms, and their supporters, began to post and view content on alt-tech platforms.[1][2][3][4] Several alt-tech platforms describe themselves as protectors of free speech and individual liberty, which some researchers and journalists have described as a cover for far-right userbases and antisemitism on such platforms.[4][5][6][7][8][9][10]

History

Alt-tech websites were first described as such in the 2010s; they have seen an increase in popularity in the later part of that decade, as well as the early 2020s. This has been attributed, in part, to deplatforming, bans, and restrictions of activity imposed by companies such as Facebook and Twitter (sometimes described pejoratively as "Big Tech"). One prominent example is right-wing groups' claims that these companies censor their views.[4][11]

After the August 2017 Charlottesville "Unite the Right" rally, Internet companies such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter were criticized for failing to adhere to their own terms of service, and reacted with policies aimed toward "deplatforming" (refusing service to) white supremacists.[12] Hope Not Hate researcher Joe Mulhall identified the deplatforming of Britain First, in 2018, and Tommy Robinson, in 2019, as two major events that spurred British social media users to join alternative platforms.[2][13][14] Ethan Zuckerman and Chand Rajendra-Nicolucci further referenced the August 2018 deplatforming of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones as a pivotal moment.[15] Alt-tech platforms experienced another surge in popularity in January 2021, when United States president Donald 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 when Amazon Web Services suspended their hosting several days after the January 6 storming of the United States Capitol.[16]

Deen Freelon and colleagues, publishing in Science, wrote that some alt-tech websites are specifically dedicated to serving right-wing communities, naming 4chan (founded in 2003), 8chan (2013), Gab (2016), BitChute (2017) and Parler (2018) as examples. They noted that others were more ideologically neutral, such as Discord and Telegram.[11] Ethan Zuckerman and Chand Rajendra-Nicolucci, in contrast, described alt-tech services in explicitly political terms in an article for the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia 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.

— Ethan Zuckerman and Chand Rajendra-Nicolucci[15]

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.[17]

Platforms

Some websites and platforms that have been described as alt-tech include:

Type Alt-tech company Citations
Microblogging Gab [11][1][4][18]
Parler [11][2][18][19]
Online video platform BitChute [11][18][20]
DLive [16]
DTube [20]
PewTube [1][4]
Rumble [16][19]
Triller [19]
Crowdfunding GoyFundMe [1]
Hatreon (defunct) [4][15]
WeSearchr [3]
Social networking service MeWe [16][19]
Minds [18][21]
WrongThink [1]
News aggregator Patriots.win [22]
Voat (defunct) [3][19]
Ruqqus [23][24]
Wiki encyclopedia Infogalactic [1][3]
Imageboard 4chan [11]
8chan [11][21]
Instant messaging Discord [11][25][21]
Signal [16]
Telegram [16][26]
Online dating service WASP Love [1]
Pastebin JustPaste.it [21]
Domain name registrar and
web hosting		 Epik [5][27]
Civic engagement platform CloutHub [16]

References
  1. Roose, Kevin (December 11, 2017). "The Alt-Right Created a Parallel Internet. It's an Unholy Mess". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved September 4, 2020.
  2. Cogley, Michael (July 6, 2020). "'Alt-tech' attracts growing number of extremists in Britain". The Daily Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved September 4, 2020.
  3. Ellis, Emma Grey (September 27, 2017). "Red Pilled: My Bizarre Week Using the Alt-Right's Vision of the Internet". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved September 4, 2020.
  4. Malter, Jordan (November 10, 2017). "Alt-Tech platforms: A haven for fringe views online". CNN Money. Retrieved September 4, 2020.
  5. Squire, Megan (July 23, 2019). "Can Alt-Tech Help the Far Right Build an Alternate Internet?". Fair Observer. Retrieved September 4, 2020.
  6. Silverman, Dwight (November 12, 2020). "5 things to know about Parler, the right-wing-friendly social network". The Houston Chronicle. Archived from the original on November 14, 2020. Retrieved November 12, 2020.
  7. "Parler: Where the Mainstream Mingles with the Extreme". Anti-Defamation League. November 12, 2020. Archived from the original on November 14, 2020. Retrieved November 14, 2020.
  8. Saul, Isaac (July 18, 2019). "This Twitter Alternative Was Supposed To Be Nicer, But Bigots Love It Already". The Forward. Archived from the original on June 30, 2020. Retrieved August 4, 2020.
  9. Zannettou, Savvas; Bradlyn, Barry; De Cristofaro, Emiliano; et al. (March 13, 2018). "What is Gab? A Bastion of Free Speech or an Alt-Right Echo Chamber?" (PDF). Companion Proceedings of the Web Conference 2018. WWW '18. Lyon, France: 1007–1014. arXiv:1802.05287. doi:10.1145/3184558.3191531. ISBN 978-1-4503-5640-4. S2CID 13853370 – via ACM Digital Library.
  10. Katz, Rita (October 29, 2018). "Inside the Online Cesspool of Anti-Semitism That Housed Robert Bowers". Politico Magazine. Archived from the original on May 2, 2020. Retrieved December 24, 2018.
  11. Freelon, Deen; Marwick, Alice; Kreiss, Daniel (September 4, 2020). "False equivalencies: Online activism from left to right". Science. 369 (6508): 1197–1201. doi:10.1126/science.abb2428. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 32883863.
  12. Fielitz, Maik; Thurston, Nick (December 31, 2018). Post-digital cultures of the far right : online actions and offline consequences in Europe and the US. Bielefeld [Germany]. ISBN 978-3-8394-4670-6. OCLC 1082971164.
  13. Field, Matthew (March 14, 2018). "Facebook bans pages of Britain First and leaders Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen". The Daily Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved September 4, 2020.
  14. Hamilton, Isobel Asher (February 26, 2019). "Facebook has banned far-right activist Tommy Robinson for spreading Islamophobia". Business Insider. Retrieved September 4, 2020.
  15. Zuckerman, Ethan; Rajendra-Nicolucci, Chand (January 11, 2021). "Deplatforming Our Way to the Alt-Tech Ecosystem". Knight First Amendment Institute. Columbia University. Retrieved January 16, 2021.
  16. Wilson, Jason (January 13, 2021). "Rightwingers flock to 'alt tech' networks as mainstream sites ban Trump". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved January 16, 2021.
  17. Donovan, Joan; Lewis, Becca; Friedberg, Brian (December 31, 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. ISBN 978-3-8394-4670-6. Retrieved January 11, 2021.CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  18. Smith, Adam (June 24, 2020). "What is the right-wing Parler app that MPs and celebrities are joining?". The Independent. Archived from the original on June 30, 2020. Retrieved September 4, 2020.
  19. Cohen, Jason (January 15, 2021). "How Mainstream Social Media Data Collection Compares With Alt-Tech Rivals". PC Magazine. Retrieved January 19, 2021.
  20. Bellemare, Andrea; Nicholson, Katie; Ho, Jason. "How a debunked COVID-19 video kept spreading after Facebook and YouTube took it down". CBC News. Retrieved January 15, 2021.
  21. Ebner, Julia (February 10, 2020). "Swiping right into the alt-right online dating world". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved January 9, 2021.
  22. Cuthbertson, Anthony (January 13, 2021). "Where do Trump and his fans go after being banned from most of the internet?". The Independent. Retrieved January 16, 2021.
  23. Murphy, Margi (January 16, 2021). "Inside the fringes of the Internet providing safe haven for American extremism". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved January 26, 2021.
  24. "Why some Americans are trading in mainstream social networks for ones that tout "freedom of speech"". www.cbsnews.com. Retrieved January 26, 2021.
  25. Hu, Evanna; Brooks, Hugh (August 24, 2018). "When Radical Online Political Speech Transitions to Physical Violence". Pacific Standard. Retrieved January 9, 2021.
  26. Green, Yasmin (January 9, 2021). "Conspiracy theories are about to go viral in new, murkier ways". Wired UK. Retrieved January 22, 2021.
  27. Makuch, Ben (May 8, 2019). "The Far Right Has Found a Web Host Savior". Vice. Archived from the original on August 22, 2019. Retrieved May 10, 2019.
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