Augusta DellĠOmo: Welcome to Right Rising, a podcast from the Center for Analysis of the Radical Right. I'm your host, Augusta DellĠOmo. Today I'm joined by Greta Jasser, a PhD student at Leuphana University of LŸneburg and Dr. Ed Pertwee, a research fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. They're here with us today to talk about alt-tech and the far right. Greta and Ed, thank you for being here. Greta Jasser: Hi, Augusta. Thanks for having us. Ed Pertwee: Thank you very much for having us. AD: So Greta, and Ed, I want to start off today with the big question of alt-tech platforms, you both research alt tech, but for many of our listeners, and I'll say even for myself, I'm not very familiar with what this is. So could you give us a rundown of what alt-tech is, and how they're able to generate revenue and be successful? EP: Sure. And Alt-tech is essentially a digital infrastructure for the far right. It's emerged really since the middle part of the last decade. And that's in a context where major technology companies have become been coming under increased pressure to take action against things like racism, misogyny, science denialism, misinformation, and so on and so forth on their platforms. And so the old tech ecosystem encompasses things like social media platforms, which are often modeled on mainstream platforms like Facebook, or Twitter or YouTube. But it also encompasses things like web browsers, web hosting services, domain registers, payment processes, and so on, and so forth. So really the kind of whole spectrum. But what makes these platforms distinct, is that there's essentially very few restrictions on what their users can do with the technology compared to mainstream platforms. So there's typically very minimal Terms of Service. And even what rules or regulations there are, tend to be accompanied by very weak enforcement. GJ: Yeah, let me just add to that, maybe a little analogy that I like a lot that Megan Squire, another CARR fellow provided, I think a couple of use ago now about alt-tech, she compared alt-tech itself to, if a bully was put in timeout on a playground time and again, so he just gets a new playground built entirely for himself. And that is what she says is alt-tech, of course, it has developed since there. And while all those platforms started off very much as copies of Twitter of Facebook of Reddit, they developed from there and became platforms in their own rights with their own platform affordances. So with their own possibilities of what users can and cannot do on these platforms, and then as to how they generate revenue that varies a little from platform to platform, a lot of them rely on donations. So there is a section of users of those platforms who are very dedicated to the project of alt-tech itself. So that would donate for the platform we're, we were looking at which we'll come to in a second, you can have a pro subscription, and many users have that you can donate and four or $500, I think you can become a quote unquote, lifelong patriot, as a status in your profile, or you can be an investor into the company. AD: Greta I really love this analogy of the bully on the playground getting a new playground built for him, I think it's a really great way to actually visualize what it means to create an alt-tech platform that in many ways is giving them the same sort of benefits as sort of mainstream social media platforms that maybe you and I get the benefits of every day. And within this movement and conglomerate of platforms, you focus on one specifically called Gab. So can you both talk a little bit about what kind of platform that is? Maybe how it originated and some of the key players that were involved in its development and its popularity within the alt tech space? EP: Yeah. So Gab is a particular old tech platform that's modeled primarily, but not exclusively on Twitter. And it describes itself the way it presents itself is as a, quote, social network that champions free speech, individual liberty, and the free flow of information online and quote, but when they have to get too specific about saying who their kind of target market audience is, you It is, and I quote again, conservative, liberal, libertarian nationalist and populist internet users who are seeking alternative news media platforms like Breitbart, Drudge Report, Info Wars, end quote. So that yeah, they kind of present themselves as this kind of apolitical or politically neutral platform that's just allowing anyone to come and voice their opinions. But it's very clear that they are trying to appeal to the right and far right of the political spectrum, particularly. And just one one further quote, that kind of, will give listeners a bit more of a sense of this. So Andrew Torba, who's the founder of the platform, when asked a couple of years ago, why he'd set it up, explain the rationale by saying, quote, what makes the entirely left leaning, big social monopoly qualified to tell us what is news, what is trending and to define what harassment means. It didn't feel right to me, and I wanted to change it, and give people something that would be fair, and just end quote, so they're setting themselves up there as both apolitical opponent and economic competitor of the major social media companies. GJ: Absolutely, if I am going back into the history of Gab. In particular, it became quite known just after the United the Road Rally in Charlottesville in 2017. When just before that, it came out as part of these so called alt-tech alliances. So that was what Ed just described, a conglomerate of developers, etc. to push this full tack, agenda. And when it started off, it had a very transparent appropriation of the Pepe the Frog meme as their logo, they've since changed that it's a letters only logo. But because of that, and because of the big boost they got after Charlottesville in members, it became known as this alt-right social media platform. And even got boosts and memberships after other right wing attacks, as our co-author Savvas Zannettou pointed out in a number of papers, before we co-authored together. It then became quite known again, after the Tree of Life synagogue attack in Pittsburgh, which is one of the deadliest anti-Semitic attacks on US soil up to date. And the shooter of this terrorist attack, posted his very last slurs and posts on Gab. So after that, it got denied service by the upstream providers. And was offline for a couple of days, I think, up to a week, and then got back online. And then it had another boost in prominence after January 6. So the insurrection at the Capitol Hill when it was said to be one of the platforms where some planning happened, and where people organized and grouped together. And of course, people came from larger social media platforms like Twitter just after the Trump ban, they were seeking for different social media types. AD: I think that distinction that you both just pointed out of the way that they're nurturing on particularly Gab, a specific kind of community, right, Ed, I really liked the quote that you shared with us about that they're branding themselves as a kind of Info Wars Breitbart breeding ground. But Greta, your point is so important about that these aren't just online spaces where people are talking, but they're also spaces where people are capable of organizing and planning out this high profile far-right violence. I'd like for you both to drill down into what kinds of communities are active on Gab? Is it just this sort of most extreme far right terrors? people or individuals or groups? Is it just the planners of things like January 6? Or could groups like incels be active on gGb? Or do what other kinds of communities which we see on this particular platform? GJ: Yeah, I might need to add a little caveat about the January 6, comment I just made, which is we looked at the groups that were active on Gab just after the event, and at least in the open one, so that are openly accessible, you don't even need an account for them. We didn't find a lot of planning happening Gab doesn't seem to be one of the platforms that lends itself to planning either because it's very open. You don't have to closed forum structure where you recognize one another. That lends itself to more intimate communication more never tying down communication with a different or maybe with a no one's set of individual so at least at the points that we looked at which, and I can't stress this enough, it's not the entire platform. But those that we analyzed, we didn't find a whole lot of planning. Let me come straight to the groups, Augusta, it's a very interesting point. As I said earlier, Gab became known as this like alt-right platform. And I would say that was to some extent true in the beginning. So when Gab came to life, a lot of alt-right figureheads flocked to the platform, and would announce to leave Twitter or have a second account on Gab. But then it quickly seized in popularity, because it didn't generate the same revenue for the big figures on the right, didn't reach as many people, the audience was different, etc. So we do find, of course, quite extreme figures there that were banned from other platforms. And that's actually where we started our analysis. So we looked at those top users that were clearly identifiable as far right. But from there, we actually went to find an early snapshot of QAnon communities, lots of them, we found a lot of Trump supporting users on the platform, we did also find a good chunk of white supremacists, so we didn't find what I expected and what you hinted that was male supremacist groups. So they don't see it incels, in particular don't seem to be very active, or weren't very active in the period that we analyzed, which might be due to their own forum infrastructure that they have on other parts of the web. AD: Greta and Ed, one of the things that is very interesting about these sort of alt-tech spaces, and just the the far right in general is that even though they do have differences, and they can be very explicit in the way that they define themselves, as I'm, I am a Proud Boy, I am not an incel I am X and not y that they do create very strong distinctions, even within a sort of overarching far right space. But I really like you both to talk a little bit about what actually is uniting these very different right wing tendencies on particularly this platform. EP: What we found in our research was that, much like our the far right communities, they're united by center persecution and victimhood. But in the case of Gab, and this is one of the things that one of one of the findings that we personally found most interesting was that in the case of this particular platform, this victimology is specifically techno-social one. So what unites them is this shared sense, shared narrative of persecution at the hands of quote unquote, big tech. So some of the people active on on Gab Greta was just talking about. So white supremacists or white nationalists, for example, joined specifically for their racist and anti-Semitic politics, which got them kicked off other platforms. And so they see Gab and alt-tech more generally, is having this kind of instrumental value, because it enables them to maintain some kind of online presence and continue to pursue those kinds of politics in a digital space. Some others have more of an ideological and again, as Greta was just alluding to, in some cases, also financial commitment to alt-tech as a kind of techno-political project in its own right. But what they all converge on is this conspiratorial narrative that left leaning big social monopoly as Andrew Torba, the founder described it is seeking to persecute right wing or conservative voices. It probably won't surprise you or your listeners to hear that sometimes that big tech conspiracy narrative veers into anti-Semitism. So you find users saying things like, Oh, of course, conservatives are getting booted off Facebook. That's because Mark Zuckerberg is Jewish, or on occasions where Gab has been de-platformed by its web hosts, you'll find people on Gab saying, Oh, look, it's, quote, The Jews trying to shut the site down again, unquote. So you do see that kind of merging of the techno-social victimhood narrative with the more traditional far-right, white supremacist narratives. But what they can all agree on basically, is this idea that big tech is out to persecute them on people who have their beliefs and values. GJ: Yeah, maybe to drill down onto the social-technical, socio-technical victimhood and how it's different from other victimhood narratives we have seen in other forums as well, because claiming victimhood for white supremacist is quite common with lots of studies, who found these narratives in white supremacist, white supremacist communications. And we even have this for some white supremacist forums. But there, the members reported that they would gather online, because they felt ostracized because of their views in their offline lives. So they would gather in an online space. Now this is somewhat different when we come to Gab, which is probably also due to how social media now penetrates everyone's lives. Everyone's life because now as Ed explained, we have users flocking together on a different platform because they felt ostracized on another platform, which of course, is very different from the offline consequences we found before. And then there's a very interesting hashtag that we found time and again, in our data set, which was #GabFam. So short for Gab family. So there is a sense of family of community that is actively being implemented and pushed for that we as Gab users, so to speak, are a community that is distinct from other communities and we together are have a shared identity. AD: That's really interesting, especially it does tap into these larger narratives of victimhood that have always existed on the far right. But the way that technology is really glomming on to these preexisting narratives of victimhood, of isolation of not fitting into mainstream culture, it's really interesting to see that in a technology space, one question I did want to ask is, a lot of our listeners are familiar with the concept of de-platforming. It's something that we've talked a lot about on Right Rising, or a lot of the users that are on Gab, have they actively been de-platformed? Or is there a decision to go to a platform like Gab, a sort of self-selection them saying, I don't fit into this? You know, whether it's Twitter or Facebook, and I need a different space? Or have they been actively removed from some of these other platforms? GJ: I would say it's pretty much both. Um, so there is a there was, it's probably better to say a thread where Andrew Torba, or the founder itself asked, Why are you on Gab, which, of course, was a goldmine for researchers, like us, and many people did report that they weren't necessarily banned from Twitter, but that they got a two day, their account was closed for two days, or three days, depending on what the policies of Facebook or twitter etc, were, or they got a lot of pushback from their community. So some of them did say they got banned from Twitter, and that's why they're there. And others made the decision after having had like a slap on the wrist for the first time or the second time or the third time to then go and join a friendly crowd for them. EP: Yeah, I I definitely agree with with that. I would add, I think at this point, it's pretty clear that there is a relationship between de-platforming when it happens, and particularly kind of it sort of comes in waves when you see a wave of of action being taken by by major social media companies, you do then see a kind of downstream effect of that on the user base of Gab and and related platforms, it's pretty difficult to quantify the scale of that effect, because it's quite hard to get accurate data on the user base of a lot of these alt-tech platforms. But anecdotally, for example, we can say that at the start of this year, when QAnon and Stop the Steal groups were being removed from Facebook, the Gab groups dedicated to those same issues were growing pretty fast, I think it was sort of 10s of 1000s of users per day. And to the point where the site became virtually unusable for a few days, actually during during early January, so that the infrastructure clearly was struggling to cope with the people moving over. So that does the does seem to be this relationship. And I guess that's important for a couple of reasons. I guess it highlights, in one sense the effectiveness of de-platforming. Because what you do see is these people being removed from major platforms with very large user bases. And then, in many cases winding up on a platform with Gab, which is much smaller scale. I mean, it's grown, but it's still much much smaller user base than Twitter or Facebook, for example. So it clearly de-platforming insofar as it's pushing people from these major platforms to alt-tech platforms, it does limit their reach. But on the other hand, I guess it also highlights a limitation of de-platforming. Because so long as that is happening, there's going to remain a market for these these alternative platforms. That's not necessarily an argument against de-platforming, but it's just something that needs to be borne in mind. That while effect can be to push people into these alternative spaces where there's less moderation, and where they can potentially be exposed to people with other more extreme views and ideologies. And I guess that's one of the kind of take home messages of the research that we've been doing. Which is that there is this new emerging kind of techno-social victimology, that we've been talking about this shared sense of persecution by big tech, which does seem to be serving as one potential new vector for radicalization and recruitment into far right politics and foreign ideologies. AD: Well Greta and Ed. And thank you both so much for being here. And I've learned a lot while you were talking. I pulled up Gab, and it is an absolutely fascinating platform visually. So I would never recommend our listeners go hang out there. But it is just a reminder of how much this space online is really evolving. And that these platforms are becoming very sophisticated. And they're drawing users in and then, as you mentioned, Ed bringing them into increasingly more far right and more violent spaces. So thank you both very much for talking with us about this today. And for our listeners. Are there ways that they can connect with you online? Where can they read more about your work? And how can they get in touch with you? EP: Thanks so much for having us. In terms of where to read about the research will the paper was recently published in New Media and Society. So anyone who's interested, can go and find that. And we've also if you just google Gab and our names, I think you'll find a couple of additional comment pieces that we've published, which kind of set out in slightly briefer form some of the key things we've been talking about. GJ: Yes, a big thank you from me as well Augusta. I got to start and I want to first start with of course, my mentioning our two co-authors, Jordan McSwiney, and Savvas Zannettou who are not recording with us today. But they had a great input into the paper so they shouldn't go unnamed and unnoticed. And then for me, I'm a fellow at CARR so I have a profile there, and you can find me on Twitter @GretaJasser. And I wrote for Open Democracy for Rantt Media. A lot of it on Gab. So if you're interested in the topic, go check it out. AD: Awesome. Greta and Ed, thank you both so much for joining us. GJ: Thank you. EP: Thank you. AD: This has been another episode of right rising. We'll see you all next time.