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NEW: MeWe has become the de facto app for rightwing movements and I've spent months documenting these communities on its platform.
When I confronted MeWe's founder about this content, he asked: "Have you tried to moderate 15 million people?" https://onezero.medium.com/mewe-sold-itself-on-privacy-then-the-radical-right-arrived-e527b38e4718
When I confronted MeWe's founder about this content, he asked: "Have you tried to moderate 15 million people?" https://onezero.medium.com/mewe-sold-itself-on-privacy-then-the-radical-right-arrived-e527b38e4718
I've spent a lot of time on Mewe parked in rightwing groups that propagate everything from garden variety racism to acts of domestic terrorism, apocalyptic conspiracy theories, and election disinformation
Here's a discussion that occurred right after the assault on the Capitol:
Here's a discussion that occurred right after the assault on the Capitol:
There's no doubt platforms like MeWe are inheriting far right communities deplatformed by Facebook and Twitter. Yet, MeWe says it was founded on principles of user privacy. It's endorsed by individuals like World Wide Web founder Tim Berners-Lee (who serves on its advisory board)
The landscape now looks like this: Simultaneously, Facebook, Twitter, + other major platforms are responsible for the content that runs downstream to these alt sites, and these alt sites are responsible for preventing real world harm fomented by their users. Both point fingers.
In October, I reported nine militia groups + pages to MeWe for this story — it investigated and removed only one. This week, a search for "militia" on the site returns zero results, + content is going down. Its CEO says it's cooperating with Capitol Police https://onezero.medium.com/banished-from-facebook-far-right-militias-prepare-for-the-election-on-zello-and-mewe-10f9b05ff92b
To be clear: MeWe has guidelines that prohibit unlawful, discriminatory, threatening, etc. behavior, which you can find here. https://mewe.com/terms
One thing I'm going to be thinking about more is how Facebook, Twitter, etc. should be collaborating and sharing moderation resources with smaller companies like MeWe. If you have thoughts on this, or are working on any projects like this, I'd love to hear from you!
UPDATE: MeWe says it has removed all violating groups and members mentioned in my story, and is taking down Stop the Steal groups as well https://twitter.com/mewe/status/1349777969414225920
