Alt-tech

rdf:langString Alt-tech

rdf:langString Ethan Zuckerman and Chand Rajendra-Nicolucci

rdf:langString We use the alt-tech term to refer to platforms that offer a promise of uncensored speech, which exist specifically to give a space for far-right, nationalist, racist, or extremist points of view, and which harbor a broad sense of grievance that speech has been "censored" for failure to be "politically correct." Many, but not all of these alt-tech sites are far-right communities.

rdf:langString Alt-tech are social media platforms and Internet service providers that have become popular among the alt-right, far-right, and others who espouse extreme or fringe opinions, in the belief that these alternatives moderate content less stringently than mainstream internet service providers. The term has been used to both describe platforms created specifically to cater to extremist users with similar functionality to mainstream alternatives, as well as more broadly for mainstream platforms that have less stringent content moderation policies, attracting users who were banned or restricted from other mainstream services. In the 2010s and 2020s, some conservatives banned from other social media platforms, and their supporters, began to post and view content on alt-tech platforms. Several alt-tech platforms describe themselves as protectors of free speech and individual liberty, which some researchers and journalists have described as a cover for far-right userbases and antisemitism on such platforms.