San Francisco, United States.
Gab for Twitter, MeWe for Facebook, Telegram for Messages, and Discord for insidersBanned from mainstream platforms, America’s conspiratorial and supremacist movements, many of which support Donald Trump, have moved to networks that are more confidential and harder to regulate.
“The most extreme Trump supporters were already on alternative platforms,” said Nick Backovic, a researcher at Logically.AI, a company specializing in online disinformation.
“The fact that Facebook and Twitter took so long (to ban them) allowed influencers to rebuild conversations and groups with almost no problems.”
After the Capture of the Capitol on January 6 In Washington, major social networks have cracked down on the organizations involved, including Oath Keepers, Three Percenters and Proud Boys.
Facebook accelerated the purge of profiles related to armed movements. Nearly 900 accounts have been closed. Twitter permanently banned Trump and shut down 70,000 accounts affiliated with QAnon, a group that theorized the former president is engaged in a battle against an alleged “elite” made up of Satan-worshiping pedophiles.
“Demolition work,” said Jim Steyer, president of the Common Sense Media organization. “Now that Trump is not on Twitter, he has lost his great speaker.”
Antivacunas
But millions of ardent extremists and conspiracy theorists are refusing to quit, according to experts who fear the censorship will unite some people with 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 taking their kids to football,” says Alex. Goldenberg, an analyst. in the Center Research Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI).
“There was a huge difference between these conspiratorial communities and traditional Nazi communities or white supremacist communities. But it seems that, despite the censorship, they are starting to blend into the same communities, because that’s really the only place they’re left. go. ”he said.
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Many gather among other signs, especially those of the anti-vaccination movement. On the encrypted messaging platform Telegram, groups of tens of thousands of Trump supporters share false rumors of “depopulation vaccines” amid insults against US President Joe Biden and immigrants.
In the eyes of the authorities, these exchanges resemble conversations at a bar or at a family table. But while the expulsion of the main platforms has limited the extremist movements’ ability to recruit, the embers are burning beneath the ashes.
For example, a group of protesters interrupted the vaccination process against Covid-19 in a stadium in Los Angeles at the end of January. But the need to regulate alternative platforms clashes with moral and practical demands. The limits of free speech are the subject of heated debate in the United States.
Digital “pollution”
To speakOne of the conservatives’ favorite alternatives to Twitter, it was out of order for several weeks because Google, Apple, and Amazon had banned it for not moderating content that incites violence. But the platform was back online in mid-February.
Gab de MeWeFacebook-like platforms saw their popularity explode in the wake of the January 6 attack on the Capitol. According to Goldenberg, the platforms are mainly used by people who have to express their frustration.
“There was no pandemic in 2020. The flu was used as a weapon to destroy the economy and steal (from Trump) elections,” insisted Gab user ILoveJesusChrist123, commenting on a statement by the former president posted on the platform. was published.
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Telegram is more conducive to action, through encrypted private groups. On the other hand, firearms fans interact on the MyMilitia.com forum.
Both networks have made efforts to moderate posts, but lack the necessary resources. “We must see the current movement as pollution. These groups have grown in power and influence because they have been able to operate freely on Facebook and Twitter,” said Emerson Brooking, an extremist and disinformation specialist at the Atlantic Council think tank.
Brooking recommends these platforms find a way to share moderator teams and digital resources.
The government should also intervene, says NCRI’s John Farmer: “The government has a responsibility … to treat these platforms in the same way as, for example, essential things like water and electricity and the means of transport. Treated as a public good, and therefore subject to reasonable regulation. “