A growing constellation of right-wing social media apps and sites are seeing their user bases grow, creating an echo chamber that experts fear will promote disinformation and outright lies about the midterm elections.
Increased calls for violence are an especially major concern.
What began in the last few years as fringe and sparsely populated alternatives to established social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube has become a torrent.
While apps like Parler and Gab have been around for about four years, positioning themselves as conservative alternatives to Twitter, more sites and apps have launched in the last year — since President Donald Trump left office while fanning the political flames with his false claims of a "stolen" election.
Rumble, which went public through a special purpose acquisition company, positions itself as an alternative to YouTube. Gettr, launched by Trump’s post-presidency aide Jason Miller, who was an informal adviser to the 45th president, is a Twitter-like platform. And Trump himself has announced plans to launch a new social media platform called Truth Social.
The slew of new apps and sites present a new information landscape for voters as November’s midterm elections approach and Democrats seek to defend their slim majorities in Congress. After being routinely bombarded with discredited claims about fraudulent ballots, destroyed ballots, voting machine malfunctions and other unproven conspiracy theories, nearly 80 percent of...
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