What? You never heard of Gettr? Here’s Wikipedia’s summary:
Gettr (stylized GETTR) is a social media platform and microblogging site targeted to American conservatives. It was founded by Jason Miller, a former Donald Trump aide, and was officially launched on July 4, 2021. Its user interface and feature set have been described as very similar to those of Twitter.
So, basically, Twitter for assholes, which is kind of redundant (Twitter is already for assholes!). But this one is a worse version of Twitter, if you can imagine that.
The platform experienced issues shortly after launch, including internet trolls posting content that violated the terms of service, users flooding it with pornography, and the brief hacking of some high-profile accounts. Journalists have observed the prevalence of extreme content on the platform, including racism, antisemitism, and terrorist propaganda.
I had to look it up, because while I’d heard of it, vaguely, I’d never bothered to visit it or look deeper into it.
You’ll find this hard to believe, but Gettr is in trouble.
Social media upstart GETTR fired over a dozen staff members late last year, including two key executives and its entire IT and cybersecurity teams, amid rapid growth and what former employees said were funding problems.
The layoffs came even as interest in the company, founded by Jason Miller, a spokesman for former President Donald Trump, exploded.
But three people who were canned say that behind the scenes, GETTR is struggling with more than just growing pains, warning that the recent round of layoffs may have jeopardized the platform’s security.
Curiously for a far right-wing site, it’s so open-minded that it is a recruiting ground for both the Proud Boys and ISIL. I guess if you want to watch beheading videos or see Canadians getting beaten up by roving gangs of thugs, you’d better sign up fast before it’s gone. Hey, Joe Rogan has an account there!
So is…
…wait for it…
…GETTR done?
I made that exact joke on TYT’s YouTube video when they reported that Joe Rogan was unhappy with the site
So, a company that is totally relying on the internet for their business fires their entire IT and cybersecurity teams. That sounds like a smart move.
@3 – siasl
My thoughts exactly. Also if it fired “two key executives” who is running the place? Who is doing the firing?
@David #4:
The remaining incompetents, presumably. Firing a team is usually a sign of management failure, unless the entire team was on the take or actively and provably working against the core purpose of the company.
You can bet a lot of undocumented knowledge walked away with those teams, so the company is going to have to pay over the odds to attract experienced replacements willing to deal with that, or will blunder by recruiting people too inexperienced to recognise the uphill struggle facing them.
For once we do have some good news.
Facebook is in major trouble.
They reported some poor financials for the last quarter and their stock has dropped by about 25%. Losing $251 billion in value is a major problem for them and Wall Street. Wall Street lives to make money, not lose it.
More and more people despise Facebook for many and related reasons.
It’s become a slum of the internet.
In many cases it is because it is the center of the antivaxxers. Facebook has been a critical part of killing hundreds of thousands of people by hosting an endless stream of hate, lies, and propaganda directed against…a simple vaccine that is safe, highly effective, and has saved the lives of large numbers of people. One of those people is me.
The internet has a short attention span and internet fads come and go.
At one time it was ruled by DARPA/Usenet. Then it was AOL. For a while Yahoo was the leader.
See the pattern here? The leaders have all ended up being who-whats.
I’m sure Facebook sees it also which is why they changed their name to Meta.
I liked the idea of Facebook. Everyone gets their own web site space to do whatever they want with it. What I don’t like is the way Facebook became a predatory business model that ended up hosting the largest internet slum on the planet.
This headline says it all.
For the first time ever, Facebook is losing users.
This is in addition to the users that Facebook itself is helping kill off, as the antivaxxers die by the tens of thousands.
Well that’s a shocking twist. You launch a service catering to trolls and then all of a sudden trolls show up. Or maybe they’re just the wrong kind of trolls?
The biggest conceptual flaw in something like Gettr is the idea that far-right trolls don’t already have a space to be themselves on the Internet.
I’ve always thought that somebody should launch an app called “Bridge” (or, more likely, “Brij”, since everything wanky and high-tech has to have aberrant spellings these days). It would openly cater to trolls and only trolls, who could all live under it quite happily and piss each other off, so the rest of us could get by.
5) @Rich Woods
CyberNinjas would probably be happy to sign on.
@PaulBC
“The biggest conceptual flaw in something like Gettr is the idea that far-right trolls don’t already have a space to be themselves on the Internet.”
I think the biggest conceptual flaw with Gettr and all its ilk is that it doesn’t offer the far-right trolls any liberals to ‘own’ or ‘trigger’, and without an enemy to focus on all the trolls will begin to turn on each other – or just abandon the platform for one where they can find people to antagonize.
@snarkhuntr this is a very good point.
Without an enemy to hurt the far right is nothing.
@6. raven : “I’m sure Facebook sees it also which is why they changed their name to Meta.”
But, I reckon that not only doesn’t fix things it makes things worse because it adds a new hitherto unheard name and needless confusion..
The problem isn’t with facebooks name its with its model and its becoming seen as uncool and for the older generations and has all the privacy and spam and scam issues.. can’t see how Zuckerberg getting into VR helps much either. That just seems an extra disjointed distraction from fb.
@ 8. PaulBC :
Quoting for truth although they do make themselves seem “tougher”, “smarter” “stronger” and generally more “powerful” and less pathetic than they really are – at least in their own minds there.
@9 cartomancer : LOL! yes. Although with only other trolls, yeah, they wouldn’t really enjoy it needing people to pick on as snarkhuntr has nicely pointed out.
@Ridana #10:
I am given to understand that, tragically, CyberNinjas will be unable to help due to having been unilaterally dissolved by their CEO in order to protect himself from the legal jeopardy he engendered by refusing to release state documents following a court order. Thankfully all the former employees are being reconstituted under the same CEO into a new company, NyberCinjas, which bears no relation to the original and will never be recognised by the authorities as a cynical move to avoid justice.
@8 a space exclusively for assholes defeats the entire point of being an asshole online, which is to smear turds over the walls to the shock and horror around them.
Yeah, yeah. Glass houses, amirite?
@ ^ Susan Montgomery :
Did you see and please can you consider and answer the questions I put to you here?:
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2022/01/27/disappeared/#comment-2119344
Would appreciate your thoughts and response to this.
Huh. What’s wrong with 4Chan / 8Chan / Gab & Telegram ..actually scratch that.. Far too much very evidently wrong with all of those..starting with them being infested by actual fn nazis & trolls.
Nasty volks make for bad company and unwelcoming, repulsive online ecosystems..
Also turns out there are actual, predictable consequences for your platform being a citadel of nazis and hive of real scum and villainy. Who knew?
See :
https://www.wired.com/story/neo-nazis-are-running-out-of-places-to-hide-online/
Among many other places.
Not “cancel culture” but consequences for what you say and do culture – which has always been thus,
@17. I’ll ponder it and reply as time permits :)
Ok. Thankyou. Please do.
@ Susan Montgomery