Issuing correction on previous free speech guidelines…You do not, under any circumstances, GETTR hand it to them. https://t.co/N4zWOIvKi2
— zeddy (@Zeddary) August 2, 2021
… The social network — started a month ago by members of former President Donald Trump’s inner circle — features reams of jihadi-related material, including graphic videos of beheadings, viral memes that promote violence against the West and even memes of a militant executing Trump in an orange jumpsuit similar to those used in Guantanamo Bay.
The rapid proliferation of such material is placing GETTR in the awkward position of providing a safe haven for jihadi extremists online as it attempts to establish itself as a free speech MAGA-alternative to sites likeFacebook and Twitter.
It underscores the challenges facing Trump and his followers in the wake of his ban from the mainstream social media platforms following the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riots.
Islamic State “has been very quick to exploit GETTR,” said Moustafa Ayad, executive director for Africa, the Middle East and Asia at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank that tracks online extremism, who first discovered the jihadi accounts and shared his findings with POLITICO…
While GETTR does not provide access to its data to track the spread, or virality, of such extremist material on its platform, POLITICO found at least 250 accounts that had posted regularly on the platform since early July. Many followed each other, and used hashtags to promote the jihadi material to this burgeoning online community…
So far, GETTR has been the highest-profile pro-Trump platform launch, given the names behind it: Jason Miller, former Trump spokesperson, is its chief executive, and the site is partially funded by Miles Guo, the business partner of former Trump advisor Steve Bannon. Trump, himself, is not directly involved in the operation, nor has he officially signed up to the platform. The social network has touted a “free speech” policy that, purportedly, would allow users to fully express themselves without the censorship of tech giants…
Larger platforms like Facebook and Twitter now work via the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, an industry-funded nonprofit which shares terrorist content between companies — via a database of extremist material accessible to its members — so that the material can be taken down as quickly as possible.
GETTR has yet to sign up…
This had to be expected. The free for all is ripe for groups like ISIS to recruit and spread their heinous videos. Where Ya’ll Queda meets Al Queda
— Jack_ryan ?? (@terror_studies) August 2, 2021
Mike G
“We’re Christian terrorists! Get this Muslim terrorist stuff off of here!”
Roger Moore
If I didn’t know better, I’d think those content guidelines had been created for some reason other than making life miserable for conservatives.
Major Major Major Major
Build a clubhouse that allows for jihadists and nazis, you’re gonna get jihadists and nazis
Amir Khalid
There’s an unwritten law of the universe about half-baked ideas inevitably colliding with unintended quenseconces. When I first heard about GETTR, I did wonder what it was eventually going to run into.
Poe Larity
ISIS was very effective with the social networks, the crusaders do not stand a chance.
Looking forward to the new digital Trump Caliphate.
mrmoshpotato
So let me see if I understand this – one murderous, racist group is having a fascist shitstain sad that another murderous, racist group has flooded their racist, fascist shitstain platform?
Am I understanding this correctly?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@mrmoshpotato: Yes.
scav
@?BillinGlendaleCA: But is the murderous shitstain extremist sad they reportedly feel enough to pass the mirror test?
{evidence to date would suggest no.}
JaySinWa
I am a little surprised that GETTR didn’t just dump the jahadis, without any free speech remorse given the dumping of anti-Trumpers early on. OTOH given the foreign sourcing and probable motivations of the people behind it, I should not have been. The goal has always been disruption of the USA status quo, and if a pretense of free speech works towards that, it’s fine with them.
Mary G
Whenever I’ve read too many “we’re all doomed and our democracy will die when Republicans steal all the elections” I remember how fast the race to complete idiocy and incompetence is going in that party. It helps me sleep a bit better at night.
mrmoshpotato
@Mary G: Hahaha. Much better than counting sheep.
sab
@Mary G: I keep saying, this is all Jim Crow redux.
We know better now how to fight it. A lot of amazing people taught us how. So we need to just do it. Long slog, but that’s life, as always.
Mary G
Hope you’re OK, Humboldt Blue:
Mary G
@sab: Exactly. I call the current era the Third Reconstruction, starting with Obama’s election, then white people marching in BLM protests, and the semi-related fast acceptance of LGBTQ+, and the right is doing what it always has done in opposition, which is violent terrorism. We are in for a dark time, but I have faith we will win in the end.
opiejeanne
I noticed today on Twitter that some are just now starting to look askance at the Patriot Takes account, worrying that it acts to amplify the nonsense from Trump’s 2 oldest sons, GETTR, Gab, Telegraph, and several other RW platforms. It holds the insanity up for ridicule, but the concern is that it gives the crazies a secondary platform.
I have mixed feelings about this, thinking that we should keep an eye on them. He reads them so we don’t have to.
JWR
In other RW news, Tucker Carlson is camping out in Budapest this week, where he sings the praises of his good buddy Viktor Orban:
Yeah, I know, First Amendment! and all that, but geez, the guy is subverting our democracy, fer chrissakes. “Should we follow Hungary’s example?”, asked Tucker in 2019, which I think should land him on some sort of anti-American watch list, the fuckhead.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@JWR: Tucker Carlson is 21st-century America’s own Lord Haw-Haw. (And the ugly part of me hope he shares the fate of the original.)
JPL
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: That’s not ugly at all.
OzarkHillbilly
As I said yesterday: Birds of a feather…
Tony Jay
“At first, y’know, I was crazy mad about all this. Ever since 9/11 I’d flown the Stars and Stripes from the back of my pickup truck and I’d supported the troops in every Election. I’d been right out there doing my part to keep this country free, so there was no way in hell I was comfortable with crazy Jihaddi types exploiting our freedom to spread their videos and suchlike. I said put a stop to it. I told ’em. No way, José. This is a space for Americans to be free in. Patriots and suchlike. We let Sand People in here it’s only a matter of time before we get Communists and Socialists and all the rest of those Democrat groups moving in and being all ‘Woke’ and stuff, and that’s the end of freedom right there.
But it turned out we couldn’t keep ’em out. We didn’t have the, uh, the whatjamacallit, the approvals. Something like that. Whatever it was, we didn’t have ’em. We were too free. But you know what? Once they were here a while, after the blood and the spit and the feathers had stopped flying. All the “Screw you Ayrab!” and the “Death to America!”, the “Y’all only do it for the virgins!” and the “You don’t know any virgins, blasphemer!”… heh, that was a good one, Yusuf’s a funny guy, but anyway, after all that had died down and people took stock of where we stood, we all started to see that maybe there was some kind of middle-ground were we all could meet, y’know? We didn’t have to be at each other’s throats, not all the time. We could talk, like civilized people, maybe sniff out what we had in common. Turns out it was a lot.
Y’know they ain’t got nothing but good things to say about ol’ Dubya? Remember him? Hell yeah, they respect the hell out of what he did over there. Made their part of the world a better place. Don’t see that in the Fake News Media, do ya? An’ they got some reasonable things to say about family life. Pretty much Quiverfull folk, when you drill right down to it. And do they hate them some fags. Hoooeee, the things they say. Ain’t got no time for Jews, neither, which is, y’know, I can respect that viewpoint, don’t make me no Hitler lover, does it? No, sir. They hate that Hitlery woman, though, damned right they do, and they’re no more keen on Sleepy Joe than we are. They don’t respect weakness, see? We got that in common.
I guess what I’m saying is, it all kinda worked out. We ain’t gonna be marrying each other’s sisters any time soon, haw haw haw, but there’s common ground. We can get along. There ain’t no difference can’t be ironed out by people of good faith, and that’s a lesson the world could do with learning. Look at us, we’re buddies now. Who saw that coming?
And hell, at least they ain’t Democrats!”
From ‘First They Learn Your Name…” A Guidebook to Online Radicalisation in the Age of Illiberalism and how the Russians lost the Battle for American Conservatism’ Published 2030
Technocrat
@JaySinWa:
I’m surprised as well. The idea that the Right cares about “free speech” is quickly disabused by posting on any right-wing safe space.
In this case, it could simply be that they lack the tech to moderate at scale.
opiejeanne
@Tony Jay: That was frighteningly accurate, even as parody.
satby
@Tony Jay: oh, well done!
Tony Jay
@opiejeanne:
I’ve watched a LOT of American TV.
Barry
@Technocrat: “In this case, it could simply be that they lack the tech to moderate at scale.”
if there are no liberals there, then they are removing them. They could do the same for jihadis.
Betty
@Tony Jay: Bravo!
Denali
This parody is frighteningly close to the real world.
Elizabelle
@Tony Jay: Brilliant, Tony.
Tony Jay
@satby:
@Betty:
@Denali:
I keep the magically preserved head of Roy Moore’s former horse-groomer’s cousin’s best-friend’s wife’s former hairdresser’s brother’s last victim in a box under the passenger seat of my car.
I just listen to him. He’s never off the Wingnuternet.
Tony Jay
@Elizabelle:
All those years infiltrating Liberty U by posing as a potted plant worked out after all. 8-)
Another Scott
@Mary G: Charlie Pierce pointed us to Jane Mayer’s latest at the NewYorker which talks about this. I’ve only skimmed it thus far.
Apparently their brilliant idea is to build a cult where one proves one’s loyalty by accepting every contradiction, no matter how extreme and ridiculous. The rich white guys at the top (and it’s always rich white guys at the top), then direct the puppet leaders (the public face) of the cult to destroy every potential power-center in their way.
So far, it’s not working. But they’re going to keep trying until they face consequences.
Grr…
Cheers,
Scott.