New social media thrive on spreading disinformation and hatred | Internet

According to researchers, platforms like Bitchute and Odysee are now the first stop where conspiracy theorists publish their videos. Those who search Bitchute and Odyssey for important news topics are immersed in a labyrinth of bizarre conspiracy theories, violence and racist statements.

The platforms have seen their user numbers rise sharply since 2019. Its followers are a devoted audience of mostly young men, according to data from Similarweb, a digital intelligence agency.

While social media like YouTube, Twitter and Facebook step up the fight against hate speech and misinformation, Bitchute and Odyssee impose very few restrictions on users. Both platforms claim to comply with the law, for example by banning racism and incitement to violence and removing terror-related material, but at the same time, both companies defend the rights of extremists to express themselves on their sites and downplay the content of their sites. messages. After all, despite the rules, users regularly publish openly racist videos and post comments calling for violence.

“Bitchute’s North Star is free speech, which is the cornerstone of a free and democratic society,” Bitchute said in a statement to Reuters. Odysee, on the other hand, claimed that the extremist content and conspiracy theories do not determine the content of the platform, which it says focuses on generating science and technology-related videos.

Researchers from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville watched more than 440,000 BitChute videos and found that only 12 percent of channels attract more than 85 percent of all activity on the platform. “Almost all of these channels contain far-right conspiracies or extreme hate speech,” the report reads.

For example, it is alleged that the shooting in Buffalo, New York, which killed ten people, never happened. In the top ten most viewed videos on Odyssey, three videos state that the black survivors and eyewitnesses were actually actors. “It’s payday in the ghetto,” one commented. On Bitchute, there is a lot of support for the conspiracy theory that the massacre was, in fact, a false flag operation to put gun enthusiasts in a bad light. Other videos, on the other hand, defend the racist theory that motivated the shooter that white people are gradually being “replaced” by non-whites as a result of migration and population growth. The only purely factual video in BitChute’s top 10 about the Buffalo massacre attracted a torrent of racist commentary, with one user calling the shooter a “patriot” and his victims “dumb n*gers”.

Other popular conspiracy theories on the forums include claims that corona vaccines cause cancer that “literally eat you” and claims that Microsoft founder Bill Gates is responsible for a worldwide shortage of baby milk powder. Hundreds of videos on Bitchute and Odysee are inspired by the QAnon conspiracy theory.

A similar story for videos about the Russian massacre in the Ukrainian city of Butha: Nine out of ten search results on BitChute for ‘Bucha massacre’ (Bucha massacre) claim that news reports about the murder of Ukrainian civilians by Russian soldiers are part of a hoax that should involve the US in the war, or that the massacre is the work of Ukrainian soldiers, British agents or “Nazis”.

BitChute and Odysee are certainly not the only websites spreading incorrect information. Social media giants such as Facebook and YouTube are still trying to curtail such content and have therefore introduced stricter moderation policies.

The search term ‘Bucha massacre’ leads to almost all factual news items from recognized news organizations on YouTube. This is in line with YouTube’s policy of prioritizing information from “authoritative sources” on sensitive topics and events.

A more direct competitor to BitChute and Odysee is Rumble. That platform also promotes free speech and distributes thousands of videos promoting conspiracy theories. However, Rumble has mainstream ambitions and better financial backing, and the company moderates its content enough to be included in the Apple and Google app stores, which is important for the company’s growth. Bitchute, on the other hand, cannot be found in the app stores. Odysee is still available in the Apple Store, but only after the company agreed to block the search term “Covid-19” in the app.

Apple said in a statement that it only allows information about Covid-19 in apps from governments and other “authorized entities”.