Censr: Alt-Right Twitter Alternative Gettr Bans Posts, Accounts Calling One Of Its Backers A Chinese Spy

from the no-bettr-than-the-alternatives dept

As so-called "conservatives" (a decently large number of them appearing to actually be white supremacists and bigots engaged in harassment) complained Big Tech was slanted against them, a host of new services arrived to meet the sudden demand. Gab, Gettr, etc. hit the marketplace of ideas, promising freedom from the "censorship" of "liberal" social media platforms, ignoring evidence that indicated "conservatives" weren't actually being "censored," but rather extremists calling themselves "conservatives" were being booted for multiple violations of site policies.

New services arrived, promising unabridged speech and a safe space for bigots, transphobes, disgruntled MAGAts, and everyone else who felt oppressed because they frequently went asshole on main. But as soon as these sites debuted, they began moderating all sorts of speech, starting with the clearly illegal and ramping things up to eject trolls and critics.

Moderation at scale remains impossible. And it's not much easier when you're dealing with thousands of users rather than millions or billions. Decisions need to be made. While it was clear to see the upstarts were unfamiliar with the moderation issues bigger platforms have struggled with for years, it was also clear to see the upstarts were more than happy to "censor" speech they didn't like, despite claiming to be the last bastions of online free speech.

"You're free to say whatever you want," platforms like Gab and Gettr proclaimed, muttering asterisks under their breath. You were indeed free to say what you wanted, but that would not prevent your content or your account being banned, deleted, etc.

Gettr has experienced the growing pains of platform moderation. This has happened despite its initial guarantees (*offer void pretty much everywhere) that it would only remove illegal content. Porn is not illegal, yet Gettr seemed to have a problem with all the porn being posted by users, perhaps because a majority of it involved animated animals.

It also had problems keeping trolls from impersonating the illustrious conservative figures it hoped to host exclusively. Aggressive trolling resulted in Gettr temporarily banning Roger Stone's actual account under the assumption it couldn't possibly be the real Roger Stone. It followed this up a few months later by banning the term "groyper" in an effort to limit the amount of white supremacist content it had to host. This too was somewhat of a failure. First, it told white supremacists their awful (but not illegal) speech wasn't welcome on the "free speech" alternative to Twitter. Then it became apparent the ban on "groyper" could be easily evaded by adding an o or two.

Now, there's even more "censorship" to be had at Gettr. One of its financial backers is Guo Wengui, a (former) billionaire and supposed anti-communist who recently filed for bankruptcy. There are reasons to believe Wengui isn't the most trustworthy of online associates. Wengui left China and has spent several years living in a New York City hotel overlooking Central Park. He has applied for asylum but has yet to be granted this request. Despite apparently distancing himself from China, he is still hounded by claims that he's only in the US to obtain information he can deliver to the Chinese government. These allegations were made by Strategic Vision US during a lawsuit over business dealings the company had with Wengui.

Strategic Vision said it concluded Mr. Guo was seeking information on Chinese nationals who may have been helping the U.S. government in national-security investigations or who were involved in other sensitive matters, according to the filing.

“Guo never intended to use the fruits of Strategic Vision’s research against the Chinese Communist Party,” the court filing said. “That is because Guo was not the dissident he claimed to be. Instead, Guo Wengui was, and is, a dissident-hunter, propagandist, and agent in the service of the People’s Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party.”

Others have echoed this allegation. While it has yet to be proven true, Gettr is insulating its bankrupted backer from online criticism by deleting content that insinuates Wengui is a Chinese spy.

Journalists at the Daily Beast spent a few days running accounts on Gettr to see if the "free speech" site had a problem with criticizing Wengui. Unsurprisingly, the "we won't censor" platform engages in plenty of moderation when it comes to speech it doesn't like.

In an attempt to test the claims that even so much as mentioning the allegations of Guo being a “spy” would result in a permanent suspension from the platform, The Daily Beast created six separate Gettr accounts critical of Guo over the past two weeks.

These accounts posted variations on the question of whether the platform’s billionaire benefactor is a “Chinese spy.” For example, one of the accounts asked, “Does Chinese spy Miles Guo fund Gettr?” It was banned from the platform just 19 minutes after its creation. “Guo a spy??” another Daily Beast-operated account asked in response to a post from the businessman.

All six accounts were promptly banned, with 83 minutes being the longest span of time a single critical post remained live. They were banned without notice of wrongdoing or explanation for the permanent suspensions.

The hypocritical chickens have come home to roost. You're free to run your mouth on Gettr with copious exceptions. And one of those exceptions is the repeating allegations about someone who put some money into Gettr. Meanwhile, over on Twitter, users are free to insinuate the company's principals and backers are in bed with the Chinese government without running afoul of the terms of service.

Gettr will undoubtedly continue to pretend it's a free speech champion, even as it engages in actions that show it's really no more protective of speech than any other platform. It will continue to disappoint refugees from other, more heavily-trafficked social media platforms by engaging in (completely lawful!) moderation of speech it would rather not see on its platform. And while it may be more inviting of general harassment of people with alternative viewpoints (which is generally a lot less fun in Gettr's echo chamber) and election/COVID misinformation, it sees absolutely nothing wrong with silencing dissent and criticism. Its promises of a social media Wild West are as empty as its promises to give Twitter users a better place to express their "conservative" views.

Filed Under: china, content moderation, guo wengui, jason miller
Companies: gettr

Devin Nunes, CEO Of Trump's TRUTH Social, Confirms That 'Free Speech' Social Media Will Be HEAVILY Moderated

from the thank-you-section-230 dept

It's never been a secret that for all of the public claims about how Donald Trump's upcoming social network "TRUTH Social" will be for "free speech" that this was never actually the plan. We noted right up front that its terms of service appeared to be way more restrictive than all the competitors it was criticizing -- and even said it would be a violation of terms to "annoy" anyone working for the site. When Rep. Devin Nunes -- who has a long history of suing people for criticizing and mocking him (i.e., no friend of free speech) -- announced he was retiring from Congress to become CEO of Trump's social network, we noted that he'd be quick to ban people on the site.

And, so it's no surprise that Fox Business is reporting that the site will have "strict" content moderation tools in place, in order to make the site "family friendly."

Fox Business has learned that TMTG is partnering with Hive—a San Francisco-based Series D start-up that provides automated solutions through cloud-based artificial intelligence for understanding images, videos, and text content. Hive’s technology provides automated content moderation across video, image, text and audio.

"We want to be very family-friendly, we want this to be a very safe place, and we are focused on making sure any illegal content is not on the site," Nunes said in an exclusive interview with Fox Business.

"Hive has a great track record in this, and they have been good to work with," Nunes continued. "They are very helpful for our team and because of their experience, I think they’re helping to craft the right spot for us."

He added: "We want to be the most family-friendly site."

Hive is, indeed, pretty widely used by various social media platforms struggling to keep craziness in check -- including Parler and Chatroulette.

But, it's pretty incredible to see Nunes saying this without any self-awareness at all. Considering how much he has criticized Twitter, YouTube and other platforms for their moderation practices -- which were also very much based on the belief of making their platforms "family friendly" for users -- it's pretty ridiculous to pretend that TRUTH Social is somehow different.

Also, the reason that TRUTH Social can work with Hive and make these decisions about how to moderate their platform in a "family friendly" manner is because of Section 230 giving them the freedom to do so without liability -- the very law that Trump himself wanted repealed.

Of course, the real irony is that along with that article on Fox Business is a video clip of Maria Bartiromo, whining to GETTR CEO Jason Miller, about how terrible existing social media companies are because they "censor" content, and talking about how great it is that TRUTH Social will be different. She quotes Trump talking about this "new age of censorship." There seems to be no recognition at all that TRUTH Social will moderate just like every other site does -- and, in fact, this video is over an article saying exactly that. Even more ridiculous: the example that Baritromo uses of "censorship" from the big existing platforms... was not censorship at all. She posted a photo of a sunrise to Instagram, and listed upcoming guests as well as "topics" that they would be talking about, including "vaccines."

It appears this triggered an automated context system on Instagram that when someone tried to share the image, Instagram popped up a note that said "Make sure the information is reliable before sharing" and added a link to a CDC website with information about vaccines. That is not even remotely "censorship." Indeed, it's exactly the opposite. It is the quintessential "more information" -- the very thing that Baritromo, quoting Trump, seemed to suggest we need more of. But because it's about her photo, she claims its "censorship."

Perhaps just as laughable, in that interview, Miller claims "fact is, we're living in the worst period of political censorship in American history." That's absolute hogwash. The opposite is objectively true. Until recently the vast majority of Americans had nowhere to speak publicly about politics. Now they all have places they can speak. It's just that not everyone gets to speak on everyone else's property.

The whole thing is crazy, and it would be nice if Baritromo, Trump, Miller, and Nunes just out and out admitted the reality: they just don't like it when their own nonsense is moderated, and they want separate rules for themselves than for anyone else.

Filed Under: ai, content moderation, devin nunes, donald trump, family friendly, free speech, maria bartiromo, section 230
Companies: fox news, gettr, hive, instagram, tmtg, truth social, twitter

Weeks After Blasting Twitter For 'Strangling Free Expression' GETTR Bans The Term 'Groyper' In Effort To Stop White Nationalist Spam

from the content-moderation-speed-run dept

It's always fun to watch each new entrant into the social media market that rushes in claiming that it is the "true" supporter of "free speech" learn about the necessity of some level of content moderation. We watched it happen with Parler, the site set up by Trump benefactor Rebekah Mercer. And now we're watching it happen with former Trump spokesperson Jason Miller -- who is so supportive of "free speech" that he once sued a news org for reporting on something he didn't want public (he lost badly and was told to pay legal fees). GETTR has already had some fun learning that content moderation is necessary (and not a necessary "evil" -- just necessary). But now it's gone up a level.

Of course, it was just a month ago that Miller was running his mouth, attacking Twitter and claiming that Jack Dorsey was "strangling free expression" at Twitter and "censoring opinions he doesn't like."

So it seems noteworthy that just a few weeks later, it's Miller who is... doing the same thing. Specifically, GETTR banned Nick Fuentes, a pathetic wannabe neo-Nazi, who seems to spend all of his time just trying to troll people into being mad about what a sad little white nationalist he is. GETTR claimed that Fuentes violated its terms of service which, um, is the same thing that Twitter does when it bans people because that's how it works.

But then GETTR went even further -- including much further than anything I've seen Twitter ever do. It started banning a word associated with Fuentes and his followers: "groyper." It's not worth getting into the history of groyper, but suffice it to say, it started as an alternative to the old alt-right co-opting of the Pepe the frog cartoon, and then just became a truly pathetic chant that Fuentes' followers chant as a sort of talisman to make sure they ward off anyone with more than a dozen brain cells. Anyway, Fuentes' little band of misfit children started filling up GETTR with "groyper spam" to protest the ban of Fuentes, and so Miller and GETTR just... decide to ban the word "groyper" from the site entirely. As the Daily Beast discovered, it's just not allowed at all.

Say what you want about Twitter "strangling free expression" but I don't recall the company ever blocking your ability to post a single word in an effort to stop a bunch of sad edgelord teenagers from overflowing the site with protest spam. And, of course, as anyone with more than a little bit of experience in the content moderation space knows, doing simple word filter bans is not just silly, but also totally ineffective, as Arizona's dumber-than-you-can-believe State Senator Wendy Rogers highlighted with the addition of a few "o's":

The key point here is that every website needs some level of content moderation or it becomes a total and complete cesspool that is basically unusable. Every website realizes that eventually. The idea that GETTR is any more "supportive of free speech" is nonsense. It just has a different set of rules that it will enforce somewhat arbitrarily, and it will make mistakes just as Twitter, Facebook, and other sites make mistakes. Of course, as a marketing tool, GETTR will continue to lie and claim that it is somehow uniquely more supportive of free speech, when that's all a bunch of nonsense.

Filed Under: content moderation, groyper, jason miller, nick fuentes
Companies: gettr, twitter

Trumpist Gettr Social Network Continues To Speed Run Content Moderation Learning Curve: Bans, Then Unbans, Roger Stone

from the welcome-to-the-content-moderation-game dept

Remember Gettr? That's the Trumpist social network run by former Trump spokesperson (and vexatious lawsuit filer) Jason Miller that promised to be supportive of "free speech." As we point out what happens with every new social network that jumps into the space with promises to "support free speech!" and "not censor!" before long they will begin to realize content moderation is required to keep your site running -- and soon they discover that content moderation will involve difficult choices. And, sometimes, it involves making mistakes.

Of course, whenever Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or whoever else note that they made a "mistake" with a content moderation decision and reverse it, there are always some people who insist it couldn't possibly be a mistake and must be [insert conspiratorial reason here]. So I find it hilarious that on Wednesday, Gettr got to experience all this as well. First, Trump buddy and admitted "dirty trickster" Roger Stone went on Gab -- another such social network -- to whine about how he was "censored" by Gettr, claiming it was because he had made what he believed were disparaging remarks about Miller (and Steve Bannon).

This graphic alone is pretty hilarious, given all the people who insisted that Gettr doesn't do moderation.

A few hours later, Jason Miller told Salon reporter Zachary Petrizzo, that it was all a mistake, and blamed the problem of a bunch of fake Stone accounts that the site was trying to get rid of. In the process, Miller claimed, they "accidentally" deleted the real Stone's account. The timing coming right after Stone made remarks about Miller was, apparently, entirely coincidental.

"Multiple fake Roger Stone accounts were suspended following user complaints, but his real Gettr account was inadvertently suspended too," Miller told Salon via email. "His correct account is currently active, and the imposter accounts have all been removed."

It's almost like... running a social media account with malicious actors are trying to abuse requires content moderation, and that will often involve making mistakes, rather than, say, "bias" or desires to silence particular people.

Who knows why Gettr actually suspended Stone? These kinds of things happen all the time on all the other social media sites too. It doesn't mean it's malicious or directed at silencing a critic (though, honestly, there's a higher likelihood that is true with a site like Gettr than with Twitter or Facebook, that actually have real policies in place and a history of training staff to moderate judiciously). It could actually be a mistake. Just like Twitter and Facebook sometimes make mistakes.

I'm still waiting for Miller and his fans to realize that all of these challenges that Gettr is facing are no different than the ones that other social media apps faced -- and that maybe all their earlier complaints of "censorship" were just as bullshit then as the claims about Gettr being censorial today are. I get the feeling that I'll be waiting a long, long time for that recognition to set in.

Filed Under: anti-conservative bias, content moderation, jason miller, mistakes, roger stone
Companies: gab, gettr

Social Network GETTR, Which Promised To Support 'Free Speech' Now Full Of Islamic State Jihadi Propaganda

from the have-fun-with-it-folks dept

When last we checked in on GETTR, the latest in the Gab-Parler trend of very naive people setting up a new social network they hope will become the "MAGA central" social network by claiming, ridiculously, that they "won't censor," it was overrun by furry porn and My Little Pony porn. The site, that is run by former Trump spokesperson Jason Miller, has struggled to understand how content moderation actually works, and is now facing yet another new kind of content moderation challenge: jihadi propaganda from the Islamic State.

Politico has an article about how GETTR is now being flooded with such propaganda.

Islamic State “has been very quick to exploit GETTR,” said Moustafa Ayad, executive director for Africa, the Middle East and Asia at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank that tracks online extremism, who first discovered the jihadi accounts and shared his findings with POLITICO.

“On Facebook, there was on one of these accounts that I follow that is known to be Islamic State, which said ‘Oh, Trump announced his new platform. Inshallah, all the mujahideen will exploit that platform,’” he added. “The next day, there were at least 15 accounts on GETTR that were Islamic State.”

As the article notes, the Islamic State quickly urged its followers to build up a big GETTR presence:

“If this app reaches the expected success, which is mostly probable, it should be adopted by followers and occupied in order to regain the glory of Twitter, may God prevail,” one Islamic State account on Facebook wrote on July 6.

And thus, we quickly learned that Jason Miller's commitment to free speech on GETTR isn't as absolute as he would have you believe:

Some of the jihadi posts on GETTR from early July were eventually taken down, highlighting that the pro-Trump platform had taken at least some steps to remove the harmful material.

You don't say? And then this statement is pretty funny as well:

“ISIS is trying to attack the MAGA movement because President Trump wiped them off the face of the earth, destroying the Caliphate in less than 18 months, and the only ISIS members still alive are keyboard warriors hiding in caves and eating dirt cookies,” Jason Miller, CEO of GETTR, said in a statement. “GETTR has a robust and proactive moderation system that removes prohibited content, maximizing both cutting-edge A.I. technology and human moderation.”

Huh. So now you're admitting that any social media site needs a combination of technology and human moderation in order to remove prohibited content? You mean, just like Facebook, Twitter, and basically every other site that has to set up policies for what's allowed and what's not and then enforce it? So very, very interesting.

I am curious, of course, whether or not our regular commenters, who still keep insisting that Twitter and Facebook must be forced to allow "all" speech on their platforms feel that GETTR is a problem as well. Or is that somehow different?

Filed Under: content moderation, donald trump, free speech, isis, islamic state, jason miller, propaganda, social media
Companies: gettr

MAGA-Friendly Twitter Clone, GETTR, Coughs Up 90,000 User Email Addresses To Hackers

from the gettr-(un)done dept

GETTR, the Twitter clone created by former Trump advisor Jason Miller, seems to have rolled out just as smoothly as every other attempt to replace the social media service that's still inexplicably popular with people who claim to hate it for moderating their speech.

It's yet another "free speech" platform that claims it upholds the lofty ideals of allowing those banned from other, more functional sites to speak their minds… just as long as said mind speech does not include any of the following:

Without limitation, we may, but do not commit to, do so to address content that comes to our attention that we believe is offensive, obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, pornographic, violent, harassing, threatening, abusive, illegal, or otherwise objectionable or inappropriate, or to enforce the rights of third parties or these Terms or any applicable Additional Terms.

Just like Gab, Parler, and whatever the fuck the thing is that the MyPillow guy is doing, GETTR is finding out it has a host of moderation problems that can't easily be dealt with, especially when you've promised to not "censor" your users' speech.

On top of that, GETTR -- like the other platforms listed above -- seems to have been cobbled together somewhat incompetently and rolled out hastily, opening itself up to an unhealthy blend of toxic content, trolling (both expert and inexpert), and security stress testing from those interested in this new collection of user data.

GETTR, whose surprising surge of early users appears to be mostly a mirage created by the importation and deployment of Twitter data, is no exception to the Far Right Twitter Clone™ rule. Toxic content abounds, as do multiple trolling efforts that only add to the mess. And it appears that while GETTR claims it wants to protect speech, it doesn't care nearly as much about protecting speakers.

Hackers were able to scrape the email addresses and other data of more than 90,000 GETTR users.

On Tuesday, a user of a notorious hacking forum posted a database that they claimed was a scrape of all users of GETTR, the new social media platform launched last week by Trump’s former spokesman Jason Miller, who pitched it as an alternative to "cancel culture." The data seen by Motherboard includes email addresses, usernames, status, and location.

New platforms are often a bit leaky, usually thanks to the inexperience of those creating them. This is all part of the learning curve. But GETTR had some advance notice its uncensored ecosystem had some security problems, given that it was successfully breached on opening day.

On July 4, the day of the site' official launch, a hacker broke into and defaced some of the site's most prominent users, including its founder Jason Miller, former CIA director Mike Pompeo, former Trump advisor Steve Bannon, and pro-Trump congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, as first reported by Insider.

Less than three days later, the platform was coaxed into coughing up user data. Not exactly a sign things are improving. The site's CEO says otherwise, claiming this scraping was related to the first breach, which allowed a hacker to deface several prominent accounts. Jason Miller claims the security hole has been closed and that GETTR "takes cybersecurity seriously."

Maybe so, but we'll see what happens. Alt-right Twitter also-rans Gab and Parler both gave up plenty of user data -- some of it proving instrumental in federal prosecutions -- and those sites had plenty of time to harden themselves against attackers. A quick patch of a service that seems to rely heavily on someone else's API to give the appearance the platform is heavily used is still a very tempting target, both for malicious hackers and those whose efforts are just another form of trolling. When your social media alternative is more performative than functional, little things like securing user data tend to be afterthoughts.

Filed Under: emails, hack, jason miller, scraping, security
Companies: gettr

It Appears That Jason Miller's GETTR Is Speed Running The Content Moderation Learning Curve Faster Than Parler

from the a-new-record dept

You may recall that last summer, we mocked how Parler was speed running the content moderation learning curve. It seems that every year a new social media service pops up, insisting that it believes in "free speech" and won't "censor" anything. And then... reality hits. And it realizes that if you do no moderation at all, your website is a total and complete garbage dump full of spam, porn, harassment, abuse and trolling. And just as Parler learned it needed to do some moderation (and its then CEO even bragged about kicking off "leftist trolls"), every new platform learns the same damn thing eventually. Though, amusingly, it seems to happen faster and faster each time.

We already wrote about GETTR, the "new Parler" for Trump fans, which also claims to be "free speech" supporting, even as it's funded by a "mysterious Chinese billionaire" who is known for suing news organizations for reporting he disagrees with (which doesn't seem very free speechy). Indeed, his lawsuits were so clearly SLAPP suits that in the dismissal of the case against CNN (one of many of the lawsuits), the judge noted:

Here, plaintiff fails to even allege that the defendants' statements... are an inaccurate depiction of the counterclaim...

Again, not exactly the kind of "1st Amendment" supporting person I'd put behind my free speech site, but what do I know?

In the meantime, GETTR has been doing the whole speed run thing at a faster pace than Parler before it. There were reports that the site was quickly filling up with "Sonic the Hedgehog furry porn" and My Little Pony porn alongside... um... "pictures of old men in their underpants."

And thus, Jason Miller discovered that it's all nice and good to say anything goes on your "free speech" supporting website, until reality shows up. Reality has a nice way of destroying the myth that no moderation is a reasonable stance.

Even more fun, Tim Miller (I am pretty sure no relation to Jason) from The Bulwark, stepped in to explore the world that is GETTR and it's an amazing read. It kicks off with a clear explanation of why every site needs to do some level of housecleaning, lest it end up being filled with junk (including pictures of men's junk). Miller set up an account named @PayChildSupport. And he discovered that GETTR has a content moderation problem.

For starters, Gettr’s verification system is a mess because the platform hasn’t figured out how to resolve the tension between freedom of speech and the freedom to spoof. Which is to say, if you’re a Newsmax anchor, you can get a special red Verrit V, meaning that you are who you say you are. Other accounts are stuck with a black V that I could not determine the significance of. Still other accounts display a homemade checkmark.

And the pranksters got me! My very first brand follow—@SonicFastFood—was not a representative of America’s heritage of innovative and tasty drive-in cuisine, but rather a digital gathering space for furry porn. Of which there is a lot on Gettr.

Look, that’s not my bag of beans but no judgment. If MAGAs are into that sort of thing, that’s cool. But let me just say that during my first day on Gettr I didn’t come across a single substantive exchange of ideas—but I was exposed to a very great deal of Sonic the Hedgehog erotica. What a world.

He goes into a lot more detail (perhaps more than you might reasonably need), but on the whole, about what you'd expect:

Taken as a whole, my Gettr newsfeed was a mash-up of catfishes and spoofs, conspiratorial craziness from real-life right-wingers, racial slurs from anonymous Nazi accounts, and pornographic trolling from (I assume) bored libs. The Algonquin Round Table this is not. The marketplace of ideas was barren.

But hey, it’s the internet, new sites with dumbass trolls and nutty power users are a dime a dozen. The most revealing part of the Gettr experience wasn’t what was on the platform—but what wasn’t.

Because it turns out that this cesspool would have been even worse if not for the fact that Jason Miller was doing exactly the same thing that Facebook and Twitter and all the other Big Bad Tech Oligarchs do: moderating his site’s content in order to provide a more usable product for his audience.

Yes, as expected, Miller and GETTR very quickly started banning accounts, rather than living up to what they claimed were their ideals of a moderation free website. Apparently, it's "okay" to moderate when its content you don't like. And it's not okay to moderate when it's content you like. The fact that "you" is a very subjective "you" seems to be lost on the supporters of GETTR and others who believe that no moderation is some sort of even remotely possible ideal.

As (Tim) Miller notes:

Funny how the entire premise behind these “free speech” platforms—and the GOP policies targeting tech censorship and the endless faux outrage on cable news—is negated the minute the complainers are put in charge.

Because what these people inevitably find is that there’s no lib cabal targeting them. No grand conspiracy of Silicon Valley billionaire bros.

Instead the founders of Gettr have been crushed by the same banal challenge that every neckbeard site admin and anxiety-riddled Zoomer slaving away at the dystopian Facebook content-moderation farm has confronted from the moment the internet birthed this vast catch basin of human knowledge and obscenity and allowed people to post on it anonymously. The problem is the users. You can’t live with ’em. But you can’t live without ’em.

There's a lot more in Miller's piece, which should be required reading for anyone who insists it makes sense (or is even possible) to run any internet forum online without some level of moderation.

Oh, and of course, you know how all this ends? With GETTR banning Tim Miller:

I'm having trouble seeing how anything Tim wrote violated any of GETTR's policies -- and it sure as hell looks like Jason Miller kicked Tim Miller off GETTR because he just didn't like what he had to say. This is something that Twitter and other social media companies don't actually do. They actually do have policies in place, and don't remove people unless they can show a policy that was violated. In other words, GETTR didn't just speed run the content moderation learning curve (while claiming otherwise), it appears to be more aggressive and more willing to ban people for simply stating things that GETTR management doesn't like.

Filed Under: content moderation, jason miller, pay child support, tim miller, trolls
Companies: gettr

Former Trump Aide Launches Twitter Clone, That Seems To Yank A Ton Of Data Right Out Of Twitter; Already Has First Content Moderation Crisis

from the freeze-peach dept

Just as more news of what Trump wanted from Parler breaks, comes the news that his somewhat infamous former aide, Jason Miller, has launched a social media site called GETTR. It should be noted that through all of the rumors about Trump starting his own social network, it was usually Jason Miller who was claiming that it was on the way.

Apparently, though, Miller stepped down from his role as Trump spokesperson to run GETTR -- and there are reports claiming that the originator of GETTR is someone trying to build "an important link between China and the West" with GETTR and a series of related apps.

Separately, a Bloomberg White House reporter says Trump isn't planning on joining GETTR and is still planning yet another social network. So... we'll see.

Of course, like every single social media site, while this one claims it's all about free speech, its terms of service make it clear it can kick you off the platform for any reason whatsoever:

GETTR holds freedom of speech as its core value and does not wish to censor your opinions. Nonetheless, GETTR may, but will not have any obligation to, review, monitor, display, post, store, maintain, accept, or otherwise make use of, any of your UGC, and GETTR may, in its sole discretion, reject, delete, move, re-format, remove, or refuse to post or otherwise make use of UGC without notice or any liability to you or any third-party in connection with our operation of UGC venues in an appropriate manner, such as to enhance accessibility of UGC, address copyright infringement, and protect Users from harmful UGC. Without limitation, we may, but do not commit to, do so to address content that comes to our attention that we believe is offensive, obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, pornographic, violent, harassing, threatening, abusive, illegal, or otherwise objectionable or inappropriate, or to enforce the rights of third parties or these Terms or any applicable Additional Terms. For example, this may include content identified as personal bullying, sexual abuse of a child, attacking any religion or race, or content containing video or depictions of beheadings. Such UGC submitted by you or others need not be maintained on the Service by us for any period of time, and you will not have the right, once submitted, to access, archive, maintain, change, remove, or otherwise use such UGC on the Service or elsewhere, except that certain users may have certain additional rights as provided for in the Privacy Policy.

I like how they take phrases directly from Section 230 and insert it there. Though it's also amusing that they add "inappropriate" to "otherwise objectionable," seeing as Trumpworld has been trying to delete "otherwise objectionable" from 230 entirely, and limiting 230 to just a specific list of "bad" stuff. Yet, GETTR seems to be claiming even broader rights to moderate.

And, not surprisingly, the company is already, on its first day, dealing with some moderation issues as it appears that people trolling the site are flooding it with junk:

It turns out that every social media site, so as not to be filled with garbage, has to do some moderation. Though it'll be fun to square the views of people who insist that social media sites shouldn't do any such moderation with the need to clear out the "lewd anime pics and the "pig poop balls" meme" from the #QAnon tag.

But there are some other concerns as well. People are noticing that not only does GETTR look remarkably similar to Twitter (with a slightly larger character limit -- 777 characters), but that it seems to be grabbing a bunch of data directly from Twitter. Indeed, in what appears like a move to "boost" user numbers, reports say that if you use your own Twitter account name, GETTR will "import" all your followers -- apparently by creating fake ghost accounts for all of those accounts.

GETTR’s app also claims to offer new users the ability to “import copies of your content from Twitter to GETTR.” And evidence on the site indicates that the new platform is also allowing users to import their actual Twitter followers — who somehow end up with GETTR accounts of their own.

For example, Republican Senate candidate Sean Parnell in Pennsylvania, had over 175,000 followers on GETTR as of Thursday afternoon, despite only joining the platform Thursday. His follower count on GETTR is identical to his follower count on Twitter.

The same goes for Murtaugh, Trump’s former 2020 communications director, who had amassed over 220,000 followers on both GETTR and Twitter as of Thursday afternoon.

“Tweets are up to the point you join, it won’t continuously suck them in. The idea is we want people to move from Twitter to Gettr,” said the person involved with the app. The person added that the app does not harvest the users current Twitter followers for the app, and again noted it is in Beta.

I do wonder how Twitter will feel about that. Of course, to some extent, this is somewhat like the vision Twitter has for Bluesky, but that hasn't been implemented yet. And just pulling out all of someone else's data raises... quite a few questions. It does seem worth mentioning that the ACCESS bill that was introduced in Congress recently would require Twitter and others to allow such exporting of data to other services.

But GETTR seems to be going, well, to a fairly extreme level. To get images from Twitter... it's hotlinking images DIRECTLY FROM TWITTER. In other words, it's not grabbing those images, it's just displaying them as hosted by Twitter. That's... bold. In some ways it's just reskinning Twitter.

I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing. As I've discussed for years, being able to let users snarf their own data out of one service and into another is a good thing for competition. But... it can also raise a bunch of other questions regarding privacy, data control, possibly copyright, and (under the decision in the Facebook/Power case), possible CFAA violations. That is to say, I hope GETTR has some good lawyers lined up. The fact that they apparently fucked up their DMCA registration doesn't bode well on that front.

Anyway, I guess we're now going to see if GETTR gets to speed run the content moderation learning curve the same way Parler did -- and how it deals with content moderation and (better yet) questions around Section 230.

Filed Under: content moderation, copyright, donald trump, hotlinking, jason miller, section 230, social media
Companies: gettr, twitter