A perennial claim from those who oppose deplatforming disinformation is that if liars and bigots are removed from the big social platforms (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) then they’ll just cultivate more extremist audiences on the fringe platforms to which they migrate. Supposedly trying to appeal to a mainstream audience has a moderating effect, so kicking them to the curb would only let them build their ranks in secret. And of course, one of the fears inside Silicon Valley C-suites has been that if they crack down too hard on conservatives, they’ll take their business elsewhere.
For example, Twitter user JWSpry was regularly one of the most viral climate deniers, but was recently banned. Not for his years of climate disinformation, but because of COVID-19 vaccine disinformation. He’s already back with an alt account, in which he’s also added a link to his newest account at a site called GETTR, which is basically a conservative clone of Twitter.
When we looked yesterday, the top item in his feed was a July 7 repost from devout UK racist Tommy Robinson. Next was a broken link to his Climatism blog about how the UN “wants to ban private property,” from July 4th. Seems like he’s already given up on GETTR, and it’s hard to blame him, because there’s not much there.
We created an account, and the suggested follows quickly devolved from D-list political figures like the site’s creator and former Trump advisor Jason Miller, and Trump-pardoned (revisionist) historian Dinesh D’Souza to obvious spam accounts. Not exactly a thriving community.
Turns out they’re having trouble attracting users, according to a Washington Examiner story about how conservative social alternatives like Parler, GETTR and MeWe “could be doomed to niche status” as “echo chambers that are no fun without liberals to debate with and troll.”
To replicate their success in using Twitter and Facebook for their hateful, violent and anti-democracy conservative rhetoric, these platforms need mainstream users, otherwise there’s no one to persuade or terrorize. Miller said they’re “making aggressive outreach efforts to Democrats by hiring folks from the 2020 campaigns and reaching out to left-leaning influencers.”
To do so, the platforms are toning down the fact that they are a conservative echo chamber that wants liberals to join to serve as targets, and instead are focusing on free speech and privacy in their pitch to new users.
And they do seem to be recruiting lots of big-name new users! Their “Popular User” tab included such luminaries as Natalie Harp, of the far-right OAN news (pinned post: “TRUMP WON”, from July 4th) and Natalie Winters, of the so-far-right-even-we’ve-never-heard-of-it National Pulse. (Apparently it’s the pet project of Steve Bannon’s UK counterpart Raheem Kassam.)
If blonde Fox News wannabes (named Natalie) are your thing, GETTR may be the app for you. For everyone else who doesn’t want to sign up to get trolled by the jerks too toxic for mainstream social media, then it’s probably not worth it. Judging by the short-lived popularity of its predecessors Gab and Parler, it won’t be long until GETTR’s gone.