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Corey Adam, a political comedian from Minneapolis, joined a mass social media switcheroo last week.
It was then that Mr. Adam, 39, conservative and libertarian, watched Twitter and Facebook add tags to the social media posts of President Trump and other Republicans who falsely claimed he had won the election. Many labels have said the claims are disputed. And on Twitter, some of Mr. Trump’s tweets were completely hidden.
For Mr. Adam, social media companies seemed to choose conservative voices. So he decided to switch to Talk, a social networking app that he used every now and then for a year, and largely ignore those two big platforms, he said.
“Facebook has started to cut, delete and tag all conservative political posts from my feed,” Adam said. “If you want to do something, you have to be fair to both parties. You don’t just have to choose a side to promote. “
Mr. Adam was among the millions who left Facebook and Twitter since the election. As companies cracked down on disinformation, they clashed with Republicans and conservatives who spread lies about the election outcome, leading to claims that tech platforms were censoring them.
Among those who spoke was Mark Levin, a far-right radio host with millions of listeners, who said on his show last week that tech and media companies are not the point. conservative view. Maria Bartiromo, a Fox News presenter, also expressed frustration with Twitter and said it was blocking Tory statements.
But Mr. Levin, Ms. Bartiromo and others did not stop there. They have directed their followers to other social media apps and news sites that have positioned themselves as alternatives to Facebook and Twitter. The beneficiaries are Parler, a Twitter-like app that describes itself as the world’s “premier free speech social network”, the right-wing media app Newsmax, and other social sites like MeWe and Rumble, which have voluntarily hosted conservatives.
Over the weekend, Parler rose to the top of the Apple App Store in terms of downloads. As of Monday, it had eight million members, nearly double the 4.5 million it had last week. Rumble said he projects 75 to 90 million people will watch a video on his site this month, up from 60.5 million last month. And Newsmax said more than 3 million people watched its election night coverage and that its app was recently in the top 10 daily apps downloaded from Apple’s App Store.
While social media sites marketed to conservatives have been around for years, they often struggle to spread more widely. Their revitalization can now be added to a fracturing of the information ecosystem.
“There are real dangers around a fractured disinformation system, especially when it comes to organizing against our electoral integrity,” said Shannon McGregor, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill professor and researcher principal at the Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life.
But Ms McGregor said she was skeptical that any migration would result in permanent departures from Facebook and Twitter. “If there’s no one to talk to, no ubiquitous journalists or media entities to react to, how long will this last?” she says.
Facebook and Twitter declined to comment. The companies have denied the Conservatives’ censorship and generally state their terms of service when an account breaks the rules. And while many curators are upset that their content is tagged or hidden, they are less willing to acknowledge that their posts can often conflict with Facebook’s guidelines for disinformation and harmful content.
Next week Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg are expected to testify at a congressional hearing about their sites’ treatment of an unfounded New York Post article that criticized Hunter Biden, the president’s son. elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. The hearing was called by Republicans furious that the sites initially limited the article’s distribution.
Despite the anger of the Conservatives, Facebook and Twitter have long taken an essentially hands-off approach to digital speech. In recent months, however, companies have stepped up efforts to prevent election misinformation. Facebook and Twitter have said they will tag fake posts and slow down the speed at which they could be shared, among other things. They said many of the changes would be temporary.
Last week, after the polls closed, Facebook and Twitter started using many of these measures. When Mr. Trump posted that the election was stolen from him, companies tagged his posts. On Thursday, Facebook also took down a rapidly growing Facebook group, Stop the Steal, which was promoting the idea of a stolen election.
This has prompted people like Mr. Adam to switch to alternative apps like Talking, which is partly owned by conservative media personality Dan Bongino. Founded in 2018 by two Nevada-based software engineers John Matze and Jared Thomson, Parler – which takes its name from the French word meaning ‘to speak’ – said it was a platform for free speech , with much more flexible guidelines on what people can post to the site.
On Speak, users can see articles about MAGA fodder and QAnon, the pro-Trump conspiracy theory that claims some great Democrats are satanic pedophiles. Anti-Semitic theories abound. Donald Trump Jr., Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, and Rudolph W. Giuliani, President Trump’s personal lawyer, all have Talk accounts.
“Talking is a breath of fresh air for those who are tired and wary of the way they have been treated by our competitors,” said Jeffrey Wernick, chief operating officer of Parler, in a statement. “Our growth is not due to any particular person or group, but rather to Parler’s efforts to earn the trust of our community.”
The recent growth of Parler has been so astounding that thousands of users have complained about the difficulty in signing up due to the blocking of people creating new accounts. Mr Matze said in a letter to the Parler community on Tuesday that the influx “had strained the capacity of our networks and caused problems and delays,” but the site was fixing the problems.
Some new Talking users said the site was an alternative to extreme platforms like Gab, another social media site that has been a haven for memes and racist content. Andrew Torba, founder and CEO of Gab, said in an email, “Jesus is king, speak freely on Gab.com.” He also sent a link stating that Gab had seen record user growth over the past week.
Others turned to Rumble, a video site founded in 2013 that has grown into a conservative YouTube. Rumble makes money in a number of ways, including running ads and selling its technology.
Chris Pavlovski, founder and CEO of Rumble, said the site has been on a growth “rocket” since the summer – and more so since the election. Rep. Devin Nunes, Republican of California, and Mr. Bongino are on Rumble and have seen their audience grow rapidly on the site, he said.
Mr. Pavlovski added that Rumble prohibits explicit content, terrorist propaganda and harassment. But he said much of it wasn’t about sorting out disinformation or stopping speech.
“I don’t want to pretend to be sitting here and knowing what the truth is or having the capacity to know how to do that,” he said. On other platforms, he added, “people are no longer allowed to debate.”
Many people also searched for more right-wing news posts. This has been a boon for Newsmax, a right-wing news site and television station founded in 1998 by conservative journalist Christopher Ruddy. Newsmax last week gained momentum after Fox News called the state of Arizona swing in favor of Mr. Biden, infuriating Mr. Trump’s base. (The New York Times did not call Arizona in favor of either candidate.)
Melissa Zepeda, 32, Republican and registered nurse in northern Mississippi, said she and several of her colleagues recently switched to Fox News’ Newsmax after showing “favoritism to Biden.” Newsmax did not call the election in favor of Mr Biden, one of the few media outlets that does not.
“So far, I like that they are impartial and cover a variety of information, not just the elections,” Ms. Zepeda said.
Mr Ruddy, chief executive of Newsmax and confidant of Mr Trump, said the number of viewers and social media interactions with his site had skyrocketed. Part of the push came from conservatives who were looking for a place where their views are represented, he said. He added that it was important for publishers to have ideological diversity.
“There’s a liberal echo chamber that’s pretty darn big,” he says. “The Conservatives just have fewer options, but if they look for them, they are there.
It may be too early to know if a widespread and permanent abandonment of major outlets will last, especially given the reach of Facebook, Twitter and Fox News. While conservative threats of mass migration away from mainstream apps and news have occurred periodically, people still seem to be flipping back to the bigger platforms.
Ms. Zepeda, a longtime Facebook user, said she will keep her Facebook account to retain access to photos she has uploaded over the years. But she hopes to ditch the social network as a daily destination, joining one of the many Facebook groups that are planning a “massive Facebook exit to Talk & MeWe,” scheduled for Friday.
“I’m tired of the prejudices against Democrats and Liberals,” she said.
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