Politicization and Radicalization of Discourses in the Alt-Tech Ecosystem: A Case Study on Gab Social

Abstract

With the increasing popularity of some alternative social media platforms, the flow of information has to some extent shifted from the periphery to the core, where problematic discourses are produced, reproduced, and amplified in the alternative ecosystem, to later find their way into mainstream platforms. The non- or less-moderated nature of some alternative platforms provides a suitable space for politicization and radicalization of discourses. In this article, we use a case study of conversations about vaccination on Gab Social—an alternative platform often conceptualized as a far-right platform—to examine this radicalization process through a mixed-methods analysis of over 68,000 vaccination-related posts from before the COVID-19 pandemic until August 2021. The article shows that while antagonistic and conspiratorial thinking was an element of vaccination discourses on Gab even before the pandemic, such conversations became gradually politicized, and expanded far beyond the medical discourse and entered the domain of organizational politics.

“Born for a Storm”: Hard-Right Social Media and Civil Unrest

“…Discourse on HRSM platforms overwhelmingly mirrors offline hard-right ideas and rhetoric, but, as mentioned earlier, HRSM content includes a lot of mundane and even a few counter-ideological messages (Dehghan and Nagappa 2022). For example, a video posted in the Richland, Washington, area during November 2020 implored others to “not have Thanksgiving gatherings unless [they’re] positive that everyone there has quarantined successfully for days.” The video creator went on to say, “thank you to the millions of Washingtonians who have each other’s backs every day.”…”

“…Additional features of the content arise from the relational element. Namely, hard-right content often glorifies being “banned” or “deplatformed” from mainstream social media—creating a social capital characteristic of HRSM (Dehghan and Nagappa 2022)—and flaunts its grievances of purported exclusion (Jasser et al 2021).…”

“…Their internal goals and operations are not orientated toward financial profit (Gehl 2017). In contrast, most HRSM seek profit and to enrich their founders and investors by, for example, selling advertisements, memberships, and financial products, as well as promoting affiliated conservative media elites and organizations (Dehghan and Nagappa 2022;Goldstein 2022aGoldstein , 2022bJasser et al 2021). Thus, HRSM compose a digital ideology economy.…”

“…They claim to support viewpoints not welcome on mainstream platforms, nor acceptable to the corporations behind these platforms (Gehl 2015). Often, this entails professing to restrain from moderation (Rogers 2020; Stocking et al 2022) and the championing of “free speech” and “individual liberty” (Dehghan and Nagappa 2022; Jasser et al 2021; Kor-Sins 2021). For example, the founder of Parler called it a “neutral town square” (Nicas and Alba 2021).…”

Gayservatives on Gab: LGBTQ+ Communities and Far Right Social Media

“…Like many alternative platforms, Gab markets itself as free speech-focused; although it does forbid some content (including pornography, which is largely protected as free speech in the United States), it moderates much less content than mainstream platforms. Indeed, extant research on Gab has underlined the prevalence of hate speech (e.g., Zannettou et al, 2018) and conspiratorial thinking (Dehghan & Nagappa, 2022) on the platform.…”