Gettr has touted itself as a free speech platform. However, how true is that? Reports have been coming out of users being removed, shadow banned, and content removed as well as being founded by former CNN contributor Jason Miller and funded by a Chinese fugitive billionaire Guo Wengui who promoted the app on his TV channel .
Nicholas Fuentes turned to the “free speech” site after being banned by almost all other social media platforms only to be banned by them as well.
The CEO of the social media platform, Jason Miller, was on Timcast IRL today and the subject of Fuentes being banned came up.
Miller claimed that Fuentes was using the platform to recruit other white supremacists.
They claim that their platform is centered around the values of free speech but their actions in banning Nick Fuentes are not showing that at all. Banning someone because they have undesirable or despicable views means that they have failed in its mission to protect free speech.
Facebook is notorious for banning and censoring anyone who doesn’t think the right way. I was banned from posting and sharing links because I “didn’t follow community guidelines”. My offense? Questioning the vax and disagreeing with the government.
Should I be banned from all social media platforms because my views don’t align with those on the left? No.
Nobody should be banned for expressing their opinion, whether or not we agree with it. No matter if you’re on the left or the right. Should you be protected from the opinions of those who disagree with you if you do express those controversial ideas? No. If you have that opinion be prepared for the backlash you may receive.
They’re not just banning those who are deemed “offensive”, “dangerous”, or “white supremacist” though. They shadowbanned Elijah Shaffer from Slightly Offensive after he questioned their motives behind removing Fuentes from the site.
“My inquiry was extremely professional and predicated on the basis that the public deserves the right to know GETTR’s threshold for banning users, largely in part due to their users joining to avoid the very censorship practices they seem to be implementing,” Schaffer added, saying that the obtuse nature of Fuentes’s banning made him “suspicious” of the platform.
Now, let’s look at the fact that the actual app, which uses Amazon AWS for hosting, is also tracking users for Facebook and Google according to a report from Talk Liberation Investigates.
Key Findings
- Numerous trackers from Facebook, Google, and other third parties are embedded in GETTR web and smartphone apps.
- App permissions facilitate the surveillance of a wide variety of information about GETTR users, including fine-grained behavior and location data. This data is then used to profile users and shared with third parties.
- “Getome,” a previous version of the GETTR app that targeted Chinese-language audiences, is still published in Google Play and effectively provides a backdoor to GETTR. Users can log in and interact on the GETTR network via the Getome app, bypassing updates on the newer application.
- Content on GETTR such as news is loaded directly from external sources, opening connections between GETTR users to dozens of domains. This introduces serious privacy and security risks. Some of this content is delivered via unencrypted HTTP, further jeopardizing users.
- GETTR’s privacy policies fail to disclose the full extent of GETTR data collection and sharing with third parties.
- GETTR infrastructure is hosted by cloud vendors such as Amazon AWS and company email accounts are hosted by Google.
- Utilizing the API of GETTR to gather large amounts of data is trivial. The situation has improved since approx. 90,000 emails were breached in July 2021, but a trove of information is still available via basic technical methods.
They had a massive surge in users joining the site after Joe Rogan told the world in one of his podcasts he joined. Less than a month later he seems to be having some regret.
“I might be part of the Chinese Communist Party now, I believe,” he said during a Monday talk show appearance, Guo Wengui.
During his appearance on The Tim Dillon Show, Rogan claimed that the number of people who joined the site after he did increased “by 1,150% or something.”
Tim Dillion pointed out that Rogan has something like 9 million followers on Gettr. (Does Gettr even have that many subscribers?)
“Yeah, it’s not real though,” Rogan said. “Gettr doesn’t even have 9 million people.”
He claimed that Gettr combines the pre-existing number of people following an individual on Twitter to their user profiles on the app.
“This is where the f***ery is,” Rogan said. “They take all my Twitter followers… and then they port those over.”
“I don’t know how to get off,” he said. “Like if I get off of Gettr, I don’t think I can.”
Is there a social media platform that is truly free? Is there a site that will allow you to express your first amendment rights without fear of banning, shadow banning, or being censored?
Yes, check out OneAmend.com.
