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Social Networks The Internet

New Breed of Video Sites Thrives on Misinformation and Hate (reuters.com) 423

BitChute and Odysee serve up conspiracies, racism and graphic violence to millions of viewers. Taking advantage of Big Tech disinformation crackdowns and the rise of Trump, the sites reflect a new media universe -- one where COVID-19 is fake, Russia fights Nazis in Ukraine, and mass shootings are 'false flag' operations. From a report: A day after a mass shooting in Buffalo, New York last May, the video-sharing website BitChute was amplifying a far-right conspiracy theory that the massacre was a so-called false flag operation, meant to discredit gun-loving Americans. Three of the top 15 videos on the site that day blamed U.S. federal agents instead of the true culprit: a white-supremacist teenager who had vowed to "kill as many blacks as possible" before shooting 13 people, killing 10. Other popular videos uploaded by BitChute users falsely claimed COVID-19 vaccines caused cancers that "literally eat you" and spread the debunked claim that Microsoft founder Bill Gates caused a global baby-formula shortage.

BitChute has boomed as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook tighten rules to combat misinformation and hate speech. An upstart BitChute rival, Odysee, has also taken off. Both promote themselves as free-speech havens, and they're at the forefront of a fast-growing alternative media system that delivers once-fringe ideas to millions of people worldwide. Searching the two sites on major news topics plunges viewers into a labyrinth of outlandish conspiracy theories, racist abuse and graphic violence. As their viewership has surged since 2019, they have cultivated a devoted audience of mostly younger men, according to data from digital intelligence firm Similarweb.

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New Breed of Video Sites Thrives on Misinformation and Hate

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  • old (Score:4, Interesting)

    by systemd-anonymousd ( 6652324 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2022 @03:24PM (#62815135)

    I'm old enough to remember when you could view inappropriate content on the Internet, and its existence wasn't a newsworthy event with subtle-as-a-brick hints that the reader should conclude this content must be banned by someone.

    Don't like it? Don't go to it.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      The problem is this bullshit leads to real world consequences.

      https://www.npr.org/sections/t... [npr.org]

      https://www.pbs.org/newshour/n... [pbs.org]

      I’m old enough to remember when conspiracy theorists were harmless, like you’d hear on Art Bell late at night.

      • Re:old (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Phanatic1a ( 413374 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2022 @03:44PM (#62815205)

        I'm old enough to remember when slashdotters used "The net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it" as a mantra to attack even the very *idea* of censoring speech on the internet.

        • Re:old (Score:4, Insightful)

          by sinij ( 911942 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2022 @03:54PM (#62815269)
          Yes, hard to imagine that Free Speech Movement [wikipedia.org] was started by Democrats. Today these Berkeley students would have been accused of *ishm, cancelled, and expelled.
          • Re:old (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Twinbee ( 767046 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2022 @05:20PM (#62815579)
            I loved the democratic ideals back then, pushing back against censorship from Christianity etc. Now I feel it's gone so far the other way that the religious right almost feels super pro free speech in comparison.
            • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

              by AmazingRuss ( 555076 )
              Try and have a chat with them or their children about the long term effects of slavery.
            • Re:old (Score:5, Insightful)

              by narcc ( 412956 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2022 @08:39PM (#62816053) Journal

              LOL! Have you been drinking? The right absolutely hates free speech!

              Book bans, book burnings, and efforts to keep library books checked out so that no one can read them are just for starters. They also want to ban many kinds of speech in public schools, while compelling other speech.

              Did you know that there's a Texas law that requires schools to display "In God We Trust" posters [texastribune.org] if they're donated and not paid for with public money?

              They also want to force some companies to host or otherwise provide a platform for right-wing viewpoints.

              Yeah, they actually want (and have sometimes achieved) compelled speech. Oh, and they want to use the full power of government to do it!

              The right absolutely hates free speech. Your claims are ridiculous.

              • Re:old (Score:5, Insightful)

                by ewibble ( 1655195 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2022 @08:57PM (#62816097)

                Both are against free speech when it goes against their narrative. That's the problem with censorship the people in power get to decide.

                Free speech enabled revolutions like women's rights and anti slavery. Sure there should be limits like liable, but that should be decided by the courts not the government or god forbid large multinationals like Facebook.

          • Re: old (Score:4, Insightful)

            by BrainJunkie ( 6219718 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2022 @06:55PM (#62815851)
            I donâ(TM)t find it hard to imagine at all. When that movement started, most media outlets and college campuses and the like were controlled by conservatives, or at least people to the right of those protesting. Students werenâ(TM)t really committed to the idea of Free Speech, they just wanted to say the things they wanted to say. Now that people on the left have control of those institutions, it is people on the right who are complaining about censorship. Just like before, these people are not actually committed to the idea of Free Speech. And just like leftists are censoring them, theyâ(TM)ll do the same when they gain power.
        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          Its okay to admit that things we thought were true, turn out to be wrong based on new evidence. There is no shame in that. We all have theories, which once tested often prove flawed.

          • by Ichijo ( 607641 )

            "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." --Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1841

          • >turn out to be wrong based on new evidence.

            There's no "new evidence" that justifies banning hate speech or uncomfortable words. The very idea of free speech absolutism arises because uncomfortable ideas were banned previously (mainly during the Enlightenment when you had an English, American and French revolutions) which led to wars and mayhem in the streets.

            Also banning the words doesn't make the ideas go away, all it does is make the speaker seek out new, more violent avenues to express their viewpoin

        • Re:old (Score:4, Insightful)

          by systemd-anonymousd ( 6652324 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2022 @04:12PM (#62815353)

          Also remember when the concept of censorship on Reddit was such a joke that they literally made it an April Fool's Joke? https://redditblog.com/2007/04... [redditblog.com]

          In 2020 the admins deleted that blog post! https://archive.ph/z3LGv [archive.ph]

        • by tragedy ( 27079 )

          I'm old enough to remember when slashdotters used "The net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it" as a mantra to attack even the very *idea* of censoring speech on the internet.

          I'm old enough to remember when people on Slashdot would read articles that simply gave information about websites that did not demand that they be banned and not somehow read a demand that the website be banned into the article.

        • Re:old (Score:5, Informative)

          by hey! ( 33014 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2022 @04:56PM (#62815519) Homepage Journal

          Sure, but if you recall the context people were saying, it was about the government preventing people who owned servers from serving certain information to people with computers -- e.g. trying to prevent information about cryptography from being available *anywhere*.

          What people here complaining about "censorship" are talking about is different: owners of particularly *popular* servers choosing not to host views they don't like. It's not that QAnon, Naziism, and COVID trutherism is banned from the *Internet*. If you're interested in that stuff you can still head over to Stormfront.

          This isn't any different from what had long been the case with print journalism. Back in the 1970s, any American could subscribe to the Pyonyang Times. I know because I had a friend who did exactly that just for laughs. So it wasn't like the views of Kim Il-Sung were banned, they just that they weren't available in the most popular platforms like the New York Times.

          • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

            by AmazingRuss ( 555076 )
            Yeah, but if I go to Stormfront, people will call me a Nazi!
          • Re:old (Score:4, Informative)

            by codebase7 ( 9682010 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2022 @09:36PM (#62816205)

            This isn't any different from what had long been the case with print journalism. Back in the 1970s, any American could subscribe to the Pyonyang Times. I know because I had a friend who did exactly that just for laughs. So it wasn't like the views of Kim Il-Sung were banned, they just that they weren't available in the most popular platforms like the New York Times.

            Unfortunately, the equivalent Internet scenario would be impossible for one reason: The number of officially government backed ISPs in most areas is zero. Your friend was able to get his laughs because even if UPS / FedEx / etc. decided to refuse delivery of his subscription, the US Postal Service as a government backed entity could not. Therefore there was always at least one way for your friend to get the content he wanted.

            The Internet does not have such a fallback. Indeed this is the reason why ISP level blocking is so frowned upon by users, why ISPs inject ads / redirects / tracking / etc., and why the government targets DNS providers and ISPs alike with their DMCA restrictions. If the private ISP is compromised, there is no public option to for people turn to, and the private ISPs have far less restrictions placed upon their actions. It's the great loophole. Get the private shareholders to collude and de facto censor something that the government cannot de jure censor themselves.

            Sadly, this scheme won't just apply to the Internet. Private Schools, can also engage in this behavior. The reason why it hasn't been an issue until now is due to the public school system existing. But as we all know, there are plenty of groups calling for the destruction of the public school system, and / or it's replacement by "school choice" initiatives. The problem if these efforts were to succeed, is that the private schools could de facto censor viewpoints they (their shareholders) disagreed with. Suddenly that ban on books about gay people is perfectly legal, with no alternatives for parents to send their kids to to avoid it. That cheerleader that said cheer was "fucking stupid" on social media? Legally Expelled. Worse, the former cheerleader might get blacklisted from enrollment by every school in their area. No recourse for the parents. Mandatory prayer to the Judeo Christian God every time the bell rings? Yep, Hope you aren't an infidel. Those only scratch the surface, but the damage is clear. This line of thinking, that private corporations should be able to de facto censor whatever they want with impunity is dangerous and in the right conditions, outright harmful to society.

        • by znrt ( 2424692 )

          a bunch of people "shouting down" other people online is hardly censorship. i regularly express views that contradict the "common wisdom" and i don't give a flying fig when i get shouted down, which is very, very often. i said my piece and no armed men are going to bang my door at night, there's that, and i honestly couldn't care less about thousands or even millions of keyboard warriors having nightmares or panic attacks.

          now, can my views, or for the sake of comparison lets say my "memes", compete with the

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by sinij ( 911942 )
        Yes, it does. However, censorship leads to categorically bigger consequences.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_march

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golodomor

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag

        I'm old enough to remember when civic education still taught the importance of free speech.
        • Re:old (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Bill, Shooter of Bul ( 629286 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2022 @04:03PM (#62815315) Journal

          Absolutes are useless talking points. There are dangers in dying in Antarctica, but the solution is not for everyone to live in death valley. Cultivating a good society is difficult, and requires constant attention and care.

        • I'm old enough to remember when civic education still taught the importance of free speech.

          I'm old enough to remember when "civics" was actually something taught in schools.

          Listening to many of the youth today (younger than me at least), it appears they stopped teaching this or taught even LESS than I was....when I hear them talking about govt or complaining about things.

          They really have no fucking idea how things in the US are set up or why....sad really.

      • Great examples! (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Xenographic ( 557057 )

        > The problem is this bullshit leads to real world consequences.

        And your example "real world consequences" are an idiot who shot a wall and a computer, hurting no one, and a guy who got sued for defamation and now has to pay those people tons of money? Yes, those are clearly worth handing out hegemony over what people are allowed to say online. I'm certain that bad people would never use that power for malicious ends, or lie to start wars, or do anything bad at all.

        All I ask is that you give me total p

        • by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2022 @06:05PM (#62815731)

          And your example "real world consequences" are an idiot who shot a wall and a computer, hurting no one

          That didn't happen.
          And if it did, it wasn't that bad. }- You are here
          And if it was, that's not a big deal.
          And if it is, that's not my fault.
          And if it was, I didn't mean it.
          And if I did, you deserved it.

          You made it to the second line.

      • Freedom is messy. There is no way around this, we have known for centuries we have to sacrifice some sense of safety in order to achieve personal freedom. We learned this through millennia of trying to go the other way. Kinda like democracy is the worst system of government, except all the other ones. The only reason people like you want to abandon a system of freedom, is that you’ve lived such a privileged, free, catastrophe-free life that you haven’t seen any of the other systems. Try and unde
      • by Z80a ( 971949 )

        Yes, but you can't stop it. the censorship approaches are just basically sweeping the problem under the hug, hopping for the best and then getting shocked when a 100+ murder spree happens.
        The only way to combat this is to actually see the narrative, understand how they're actually convincing people and dismantle it, and you're not doing it if it's happening on heavily encrypted channels.

      • Of course it leads to real world consequences. The question is if banning it from mainstream services will help.

        You do not remember correctly, by the way. In the good old days when they only had to be censored from one tube (the cathode ray tube), conspiracy theories still did plenty of damage. Probably even more than today.

        Censorship gives conspiracy theories a nutrient they're otherwise constrained by: credibility. "Why would they suppress it if they weren't afraid of the truth?".

        They get to hold the beli

    • The article never suggests anything should be banned, and that wasn't my reaction to it, either.

      Like you said, I don't like it, and I won't go to it -- and nothing further. But I didn't know about these sites and their tendency toward misinformation until I read this article, so in that sense it was legitimately helpful.

    • by fermion ( 181285 )
      I am old enough to remember when TV and radio told us who to hate. That the Clintonâ(TM)s were murdering people left and right. That the good evangelicals were not molesting the kids and the agents that raided the cult murdered the kids, not the god fearing Christianâ(TM)s living there. That Eric Rudolph was gods warrior sent to cleanse the earth by ridding us of evil, like the black mother exploded at the Olympics. The more things change the more they stay the same.
    • Inappropriate stuff is different than information warfare.

      Not to weigh in on what to do with the fact that a state of information warfare does exist, just saying- don't pretend like it's the same as sites that collect "inappropriate" content.
    • Re:old (Score:5, Insightful)

      by war4peace ( 1628283 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2022 @04:00PM (#62815299)

      You are, then, old enough to remember the Internet was accessible by single-digit percentage of the population, most of which had brains instead of a box full of sawdust.

    • Re:old (Score:5, Insightful)

      by allcoolnameswheretak ( 1102727 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2022 @04:22PM (#62815395)

      I'm old enough to remember when you could view inappropriate content on the Internet, and its existence wasn't a newsworthy event with subtle-as-a-brick hints that the reader should conclude this content must be banned by someone.

      Don't like it? Don't go to it.

      I'm old enough to remember when conservatives in the US were about conservative values: family, freedom, liberty and religion. Nowadays that political leaning has been hijacked by a brand of populism that has become a threat for democracy and the rule of law. Right-wing commentators and other influencers openly spread likes and conspiracy theories, under the guise of "freedom of speech". Having learned what works from social media algorithms, they propagate increasingly provocative content intent to emotionalize and agitate their clientele (and sell plenty of T-shirts, caps and coffee mugs in the process). Not letting any crisis go to waste (immigration, refugees, Covid-19, Ukraine war), anything is always converted into some underhanded plot by "the establishment" to "take control of your freedoms". This has fostered the unprecedented mistrust of institutions and democracy itself, resulting in an almost-coup by one of their "great leaders": a business opportunist and conman turned president. This has lead to a number of violent attacks including murders perpetrated by a few gullible fools who were dragged to far into this nonsensical rabbit hole. But the number of gullible fools seems to be ever rising as the few voices of reason are extinguished and branded as "traitors". I don't know where it will all lead up to, but history has shown us that it leads to the darkest places when the populists and agitators take control.

  • this is not new (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sdinfoserv ( 1793266 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2022 @03:41PM (#62815191)
    Matt Taibbi published the book "Hate Inc" back in 2018 that covers this very topic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org].
    Essentially, news outlets are businesses, and the goal of business is to make money. They figured out they could make lots and lots of money by picking a base (conservatives, liberals, whites, whatever, etc) and tailoring stories to get that base really excited and angry. It's an excellent book, worth the read.
    Fox was the creator of it, but they soon all jumped on this profitable model. Both Fox News and MSNBC have dodged law suits by claiming they are "opinion" or entertainment and not news. https://factcheck.thedispatch.... [thedispatch.com]
  • frikkin! frogs! let me say it real slow!!!!!
  • Nor should they. That would *actually* be a violation of freedom of speech, not "someone was mean to me on twitter so shut it down".

    The private sector though? Don't go, don't host, boycott, pressure advertisers.. all fair game imo. That's called protesting.

    Almost everyone protests things they don't like in some way.

  • by rpnx ( 8338853 )
    I know some science/chemistry channels I liked to watch moved to BitChute after being banned from YouTube for showing science experiments that were "too dangerous", as well as chocolate cake that was too delicious.
  • "It's Afraid" (Score:2, Insightful)

    by DesScorp ( 410532 )

    "Intolerance, Misinformation, and Hate"
    Oh Noes!

    Ahh, you revolutionaries. You soldiers of The Woke. Your holy quest to make all One With The Body is failing.

    For years, all we heard was "If you don't like it, build your own places". So... they did. THEN you mocked them and said "Pfft, no one will want to use your silly sites". People flooded in, slowly at first, and then in significant numbers. NOW, you're going "Oh no, look at all the people using these sites! We have to DO something!"

    You're not going to sil

    • Nailed it.

    • Re:"It's Afraid" (Score:5, Insightful)

      by tragedy ( 27079 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2022 @05:24PM (#62815591)

      "Oh no, look at all the people using these sites! We have to DO something!"

      Except that you're projecting "We have to Do something!" onto this. The article didn't say that. Not to mention that doing something does not automatically mean censorship. Educating people so that they don't fall so easily for lies is also doing something. If you're confused and think that's somehow censorship, that's your problem.

  • by MobyDisk ( 75490 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2022 @04:14PM (#62815363) Homepage

    I wonder:
    1) How long will these sites stay up, and
    2) Are these sites truly free, or are they solely for whackjob conspiracies?

    It will be fascinating to see what happens to these sites in the near future. Websites like The Daily Stormer (a white supremist site) found that even the fabric of the internet, such as DNS providers and CDNs, were putting up roadblocks to their content. Will that happen here?

    As I understand it, supposed "free speech" sites such as Truth Social will take down anti-trump material, so they are just extremist sites in disguise. Are these sites just like that, or can I post a nice moderate video about masks, vaccines, and the origin of Covid without being taken down?

    • by ffkom ( 3519199 )
      Odysee or BitChute are not quite partisan outlets like "Truth Social" or Youtube. You will most certainly not see your nice videos taken down.
  • I don't object to people making a profit off of the hatred of others, or to them sowing the seeds of violence and paranoia. Good for them - they tapped into a market, and can reap the rewards. I do object to those that lie to themselves about their motives. They're not protectors of free speech, they're simple garden variety opportunists. I trust that in their inner thoughts they know this.

  • If it is as popular as the hype in TFA says, capitalism will soon move in and bury all the content under ads and paywalls.

  • These sites are built specifically to host the most controversial of content which means they are really only going to at max capture 10% of the market.

    BitChute, Odysee, Cozy can and will capture a loyal audience, maybe enough to be profitable but it will always be political and always be controversial and none of them will come close to a fraction of the views YouTube or TikTok get per day because the "normies" have no reason to put that content on these sites and are even discouraged because who wants the

  • The truly frightening thing about these sites is that their owners, like Fox News, are completely aware that the misinformation they serve is completely false but it is easier to generate "hate" clicks than "like" clicks so they have chosen the easier route.

    Scratch a hate site and your find a failed media property developer. Do you think Fox News has a choice? Do you think that Alex Jones could build an honest media company?

  • Reeeeeeeeeeeeeee they haz their own platforms now?!?! We can't control them!?!?! Reeeeeeeeeeeeee

    Never mind that Twitter has been exposed for colluding with the gov't to suppress information, not misinformation. They've violated constitutional rights. [youtube.com]

    Fuck them and fuck censorship.

  • by Voice of satan ( 1553177 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2022 @05:57PM (#62815711)

    Basically, on Odysee, you find what you search for. I get there tech and science videos. Veritasium is there for example. But if you type random stuff in the search engine you will get weird stuff indeed. Like lots of vulgarity and esoteric bull.

    But type something stupid in the youtube search engine and you will also find pseudoscience and esoteric crap. I ever still see a video of a French naturopath teaching how to wash the labia and clitoris of babies to lower their fever.

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