Pew Studies Alternatives to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube

Pew Research Center examined seven social media applications that bill themselves as alternatives to established platforms including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube: BitChute, Gab, Gettr, Parler, Rumble, Telegram and Truth Social. The think tank surveyed 10,188 U.S. adults from May 16 through 22 and audited the seven platforms in the study, analyzing the 200 accounts with the most followers on each site, as well as the topics discussed in 585,470 posts published in June by those accounts. Pew found that 6% of respondents regularly get news from at least one of the platforms it analyzed, while 65% said they found a community that shared their views. It came as little surprise that politics were a major factor, as Pew wrote, “This study finds signs that these sites may be another symptom of the increasingly polarized public discourse and Americans’ partisan divisions in the broader news media environment. A majority of those who get news on at least one of these seven alternative social media sites are Republicans or lean toward the Republican Party, in contrast with more established social media sites, where news consumers are more likely to be Democrats or lean Democratic.” Pew said 54% of the prominent accounts it analyzed appeal to some kind of value or political orientation in their profiles, while 26% expressed right-leaning orientations or support for former President Donald Trump. Other trends in those accounts included pro-America or patriotic views (21%), appeals to a religious identity (21%), freedom or liberty (7%), pro-gun or pro-Second Amendment sentiments (6%) and support the set of conspiracy theories known as QAnon (6%). All seven platforms explicitly state that they support free speech, with four (BitChute, Gettr, Parler and Rumble) specifically declaring their opposition to censorship and three (Gab, Gettr and Parler) identifying themselves as alternatives to Big Tech. All of the sites except Gab moderate user content to at least some extent beyond spam or legal requirements through actions such as removing posts or banning and suspending accounts for content that is offensive, racist, violent or, in some cases, due to their broader political viewpoint. Pew said that when it asked respondents who get news from them to cite the first thing that came to mind when thinking of these alternative social sites, 22% said they provide a sense of freedom of speech and a lack of censorship, or serve as an alternative to more established platforms. Conversely, respondents who have heard of the alternative sites but do not use them as news sources said they most commonly associate them with inaccuracy and misinformation (16%), political bias or the political right (11%) and extremism and fringe ideas (6%). Pew said 15% of the 1,400 prominent accounts it studied were banned or demonetized on other social platforms, while 83% of those accounts are run by individuals, meaning a single person with a noted affiliation to an organization or one without any organizational affiliation. BitChute had the highest percentage of accounts banned on other platforms (35%), followed by Rumble (22%), Gettr (13%), Gab (12%), Parler (12%) and Telegram (12%). Truth Social led in prominent accounts run by individuals, at 94%, followed by Gettr (92%) and Gab (91%), while that figure was just 54% for Telegram. Pew also found that five broad issues were discussed by at least one-quarter of the prominent accounts it analyzed, and by the majority in many cases, adding, “The phrases used to discuss these topics highlight non-mainstream worldviews and sometimes offensive language. The words used by prominent alternative social media accounts to discuss issues help reveal the unique language, issues of salience and influential figures within these online spaces.” The issues were: abortion; the attack on the U.S. Capitol Jan. 6, 2021; guns; LGBTQ issues; and vaccines.