Since the election of Donald Trump in 2016, an entire ecosystem of right-wing social media platforms has sprung into existence—from Gab (where the alleged Pittsburgh synagogue shooter posted hate speech) to Parler (a point of hot for insurgent activities on the eve of January 6) for the former president himself Truth Social (which was frequented by a fan of his who was recently shot dead after attacking an FBI office in Cincinnati). This new wave of apps and sites follows in the footsteps of 4chan and 8kun, older Internet message boards that continue to attract a sizable audience of conspiracy theorists and violent racists.
Welton Chang knows this corner of the digital world well. A former Army intelligence officer and human rights activist, Chang runs Pyrra, a small tech startup dedicated to identifying and tracking extremist ideas circulating in these spaces. Pyrra, which launched in early 2022 with $1.3 million in funding, monitors more than 20 alternative social media sites and online forums, scanning about 100 million messages a week.
Chang, a data scientist, says increased content moderation on major social media platforms — including the takedown of figures ranging from Trump to Alex Jones — has driven a significant contingent of users to the spaces Pyrra tracks, which tend towards an absolutist view of free speech. .
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Can you tell me in simple terms what Pyrra does?
Pyrra is a threat intelligence company. We do three things: We collect content – publicly available information – from alternative social media sites. We use machine learning and advanced algorithms to detect violent threats, hate speech and misinformation appearing on these platforms. And then we display that information to our clients, either through reports or through a platform that we have.
We started in the human rights community. We were a project within “Human Rights First”. [a U.S.-based advocacy group]. … We left HRF as our company in December 2021 and launched our platform earlier this year.
In general, what are the big extremist threats you are pursuing these days? What bothers you?
One is just the death of critical thinking and the amount of speculation without evidence that becomes the truth, the little truth, on these platforms. It can be something as innocuous as something done by a celebrity to things that really have an impact on the health of our democracy.
But it’s also just a general lack of trust in institutions. … We’re at an all-time low in terms of trust in government, based on all the different metrics out there. …
[This brings us to] the inherent incoherence of conspiracy theories and these really weird ideas about how the world actually works. People believe that the government is at the same time completely incompetent and also omniscient and omnipotent and capable of making a massive effort like helping Bill Gates spread the COVID vaccine through mind control via 5G technology.
These are diametrically opposed ideas, but people are simultaneously believing both and saying, “This is what is happening in the world today.”
I’ve been really immersed in this stuff since 2016 and I’m still horrified, surprised and taken aback by some of the things I read on these platforms. And maybe the day I get caught up in these things is the day I get out of business. But I’m still shocked by the things I read.
Look at the Pew Research polls that are out there about how many people believe the core principles of QAnon. I think we have entered a new phase in which social media has changed and distorted the way we encounter information, how we process it, how we internalize what is considered true. It has important implications for our democracy.
I truly believe that social media is an accelerator. …
An Accelerator of Social Disintegration?
Yes, yes, exactly.
You have an interesting thread on Twitter about the misinformation you are seeing about the January 6 committee. Can you tell me about it?
On these alternative social media platforms, the story for January 6 began to be pushed to January 7. People started from saying it was antifa that was responsible. This was reinforced by more mainstream characters, with even Tucker Carlson talking about antifa possibly having a role on January 6th.
Immediately they were trying to shift the blame. You had members carrying MAGA community cards like [Jan. 6 protester] Ray Epps is falsely accused of being an FBI informant and being responsible for pushing people into the Capitol. He came out and said: “I was one of them [the pro-Trump movement]and they just turned against me.”
It is enough for a single user on one of these platforms to write something strange without any factual basis or evidence. They are not quoting anything, not looking at any solid information, or taking things out of context. And this is simply reinforced endlessly by other users. People who are not sophisticated consumers of information see this on these platforms and say, “I agree with this. That sounds plausible. Now it’s the truth for me.”
If you ask people, “Who was responsible for January 6?” a significant number of people will tell you that antifa had a role in January 6th. Multiple credible studies have shown that antifa had no role in January 6th. cleared from the Capitol building.
In the past this is something that would have happened on Twitter. But now it starts on smaller platforms. It may eventually migrate to Twitter. But Twitter and the bigger platforms actually do some content moderation, making it harder for these things to gain traction or be picked up.
These smaller countries either don’t have the resources to moderate content or don’t have the will to do it. They are allowing these narratives to fester and gain traction and eventually jump host.
Of all the alternative social media apps and sites, which ones seem to be the most successful? Where is the energy?
It’s still channel 4. … One secret about 4chan is that they actually have to do a significant amount of content moderation now – where they remove posts because of how bad and violent they are. There are a large number of people on 4chan on a regular basis who frequent the boards. It’s still crazy out there.
More than Telegram, an instant messaging service?
Telegram is also great. Right now we track thousands of Telegram channels, but that’s just a drop in the bucket.
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