Online supporters of President Donald Trump are spreading to smaller social media platforms, running away from what they say is unfair treatment by Facebook, Twitter and other major technology companies seeking to crack down on misinformation and threats of violence.
The efforts of these conventional platforms, fueled by the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, are likely to be successful, according to social media and disinformation experts. But the crackdown could cause some of Trump’s fiercest supporters to retreat to dark and secret spaces on the internet, where conspiracy theories and violent rhetoric run wild.
“We will see fewer opportunities to radicalize new people” on conventional platforms, said Kate Starbird, a leading disinformation expert at the University of Washington on Wednesday. “But for those who are already radicalized, or have already entered the rabbit hole with conspiracy theories, it may not make a difference if the places they will become echo chambers.”
For years, leading technology companies have been the target of conservative ire, with complaints that Facebook and Twitter impose their policies with a political bias. The platforms have also been criticized for allowing harmful conspiracy theories and hate speech to thrive on their websites.
Then came an unprecedented response from tech companies to the Capitol riot, fueled in part by false and misleading social media posts that undermined faith in the US 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 removed fraudulent posts alleging that the election in the United States was stolen. Snapchat also banned Trump, and on Wednesday, YouTube suspended its channel for at least a week.
Some conservative users found refuge briefly in Parler, only to see the conservative alternative to Facebook go dark 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 security.
The crackdown has prompted many conservative posters to consider more obscure alternative platforms, such as Gab, who sold himself to Trump supporters. Gab CEO Andrew Torba, who describes himself as an “American Christian and populist entrepreneur,” posted on Wednesday that 1.7 million users have signed up in the past four days.
“This is where we make our final stand for our sacred birthright granted by God and confirmed by our Founding Fathers,” read a comment shared by Torba.
Other platforms that attract Trump supporters include Signal and Telegram, messaging services already used by individuals and groups with different ideologies around the world, as well as a growing list of lesser-known platforms like Rumble, MeWe and CloutHub.
Telegram announced on Wednesday that it had more than 500 million users, with more than 25 million signing up since Sunday.
Several Trump social media stars banned from mainstream platforms launched their own channels on the service, gaining thousands of followers in just a few days. A channel that claims to be run by conservative lawyer L. Lin Wood Jr., who filled Twitter with false statements about the election and asked Parler for Vice President Mike Pence to be killed, has gained over 100,000 subscribers since his first message was posted Monday. QAnon and far-right channels have also seen their membership grow by thousands this week.
Many of these smaller sites were already havens for extremists and conspiracy theorists who were expelled from Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, said Jared Holt, a disinformation researcher at the Atlantic Council, based in Washington.
“In the worst case, I could imagine that there is a potential here for mass radicalization if crowds of people show up on platforms that have been the cradle of extremist movements,” said Holt.
These platforms still have only a fraction of the audience that Facebook or Twitter have, which means that it will be more difficult for conspiracy theorists and extremists to spread their message.
“There are tradeoffs,” said Starbird of the platform crackdown: less disinformation spreading to the general public, but also running the risk of concentrating disinformation on much smaller sites with few rules and little to no content moderation.
It is also possible that some on the far right may take greater advantage of more secure encrypted messaging services offered by companies like Signal, Telegram and WhatsApp, making it more difficult for researchers, journalists and government officials to monitor signs of threats, according to James Ludes, a former congress defense analyst and disinformation specialist who runs the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy at Salve Regina University.
“They are still here,” said Ludes. “If we throw all these people into the dark shadows of the Internet, they will continue to communicate, but the authorities will have a harder time tracking him.”
Meanwhile, on marginal sites associated with the anti-government Boogaloo movement, planning continues for armed protests in state capitals. Conversation about these protests is on some social media, said Holt, and in an internal FBI bulletin this week warned of extremist threats at such events.
The organizers “are still determined to move on,” said Holt. “It is not yet clear what we can expect when it comes to attendance.”