Andrew Torba, chief executive of Gab, said in an email that “corporations shouldn’t decide what people get to say online,” adding that he believed that Gab was a more popular news destination than Pew had found it to be.
Gettr said in a statement that it supported free speech and the democratic exchange of ideas online while also taking online harassment seriously. The company said it “has created a positive user experience that is making social media fun again, something the dying Big Tech social media platforms cannot claim.”
In a statement, Rumble said that it allows users — 78 million a month as of August, it said — to express themselves and that its “mission is to protect a free and open internet.” The company added that it had strict moderation policies banning the incitement of violence, illegal content, racism, antisemitism, copyright violations and the promotion of groups designated by the U.S. and Canadian governments as terrorists, along with other restrictions.
Truth Social described itself as “the leading obstacle to Big Tech’s suppression of dissenting viewpoints on social media” and said it had not expanded to all mobile devices but was growing fast.
Amy Peikoff, the head of policy and legal at Parler, said in a statement that offensive content or hate speech was often removed from the company’s apps hosted by Apple and Google, “as required by those companies’ guidelines.” On Parler.com, users have control over the material in their feeds, although the company removes clearly fraudulent content when it is reported, she said.
“We do not generally attempt to do our users’ critical thinking for them,” Ms. Peikoff said.
Telegram and BitChute did not respond to requests for comment.
The sites themselves, as well as some of their backers, have been subject to bans. Mr. Trump started Truth Social after Facebook and Twitter, citing public safety risks, suspended him after the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. Parler was one of the fastest-growing apps in the country when Amazon, Apple and Google cut it off last year for hosting calls for violence around the time of the riot, causing it to disappear from the internet for weeks. In March, Brazil’s Supreme Court blocked Telegram in the country over disinformation concerns but lifted the ban two days later after the service took steps to comply with the court’s orders.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nytimes.com
