Right-wing trolls are leaving major platforms for fringe sites.
The New York Times reports that several million of those supporters have recently moved to sites like Parler, Rumble and Newsmax. These are right-leaning platforms touting a “free speech” philosophy that effectively means users can immerse themselves and each other in misinformation, conspiracy theories and outright lies with no pushback from anyone.
Not surprisingly, the sites are magnets for QAnon adherents and others whose politics are grounded in assertions that are simply and blatantly false. We poked around Parler recently and found it full of screeds about how President-elect Joe Biden’s victory was fraudulent, and Trump still has a chance at victory. There’s little if any acknowledgement of the fact that these screeds are not only untrue but serve to undermine public faith in America’s elections.
There’s no law against lying. But it’s telling that Parler’s members include Fox News personalities, ranking congressional Republicans and Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr. — all of them sharing the stage with people who insist, unfiltered, that Democrats are satanic pedophiles.
Twitter, Facebook and other mainstream platforms should welcome this exodus of extremists. It may dent their membership numbers somewhat, but it will make their fact-checking easier and their platforms a haven for fact-based debate. Let other kinds of debate slink off into the right-wing shadows.
This was November, I cannot help but wonder if this exodus and echo chamber creation did not lead to January the sixth. Indeed, was this the drinking of the "cool aid"?