Alt-Tech platforms: A haven for fringe views online

Where to go when thrown off YouTube? Alt-Tech
Where to go when thrown off YouTube? Alt-Tech



One of the more recent startups is Hatreon, a crowdfunding site for people creating controversial content. (Watch the whole series Divided We Code)





While he doesn't align himself with all their worldviews, Wilson is enabling the "political speech" of these characters. He's taking a cut too: He gets 5% of every dollar raised on Hatreon.

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Cody Wilson is the founder of Hatreon





"I think I'm known, at least in the underbelly of the internet, as one of the more radical free-speech activists," he said.



"I think we're reaching a point where these sites are becoming monolithic," said PewTube founder Anthony Mayfield. "When there is a need for [new] technology because of a clampdown, a lot of really smart minds say, 'OK. Here is a problem,' and they think about how to address it. It's going to spur a huge backlash and digital innovation."

PewTube is still small -- it just passed 400,000 total video streams. And the content is mostly amateur postings, much of it extremely disturbing -- including videos that glorify mass murderer Dylann Roof, those that equate black protesters with primates from "Planet of the Apes," and one that puts Holocaust atrocities to the tune of Simon and Garfunkel's "Sound of Silence."

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Screening an anti-Semitic video on PewTube

But Mayfield is less concerned about what's being said, and more concerned that these content creators not be censored.

"It's a scary moment right now for the internet and free speech," he said. "We run a really dangerous risk saying people who we find distasteful aren't able to use these services."

Mayfield said he was inspired to start the site when a professor and free speech advocate he admired, Jordan Peterson, was temporarily locked out of his YouTube and Gmail accounts earlier this year. While Peterson told the Toronto Sun he expected "political reasons," the details as to why he was locked out aren't clear. He did not respond to CNN Tech's request for clarity. Google said it would not comment on individual user's accounts but said, "YouTube never took down or suspended his account, and his videos have remained accessible."


Gab says "all are welcome" -- a nod to the First Amendment. But, really, it gained popularity by attracting "contrarians" who got sick of Twitter's terms of service. In August, the company tweeted that it crowdfunded more than $1 million to keep the site going.


This is all happening as tech companies not only find themselves part of the broader culture wars, but as they come under greater scrutiny for their sheer size and power. And it's not only people with extreme political views who are sounding the alarm.

"What we're seeing with these platforms is a monopolization of control over commerce on the Internet," said Barry Lynn, executive director of the Open Markets Institute, a left-leaning nonprofit that had its own run-in with Google.



Alphabet Chairman Eric Schmidt, unsurprisingly, advocated that tech companies have an important role in "ranking" content on the internet. "Would you rather have us make this decision, or the government make this decision?" he asked in an interview earlier this month.

Hatreon's Wilson doesn't want either group to have that power. That's why he created his peer-to-peer funding platform.





"It doesn't mean anything, it distracts you. It uses a moral justification to silence and to censor," Wilson said. "Any book is, in the right hands, like a grenade. This can't be controlled and we shouldn't try to control it."



PewTube says it doesn't allow copyrighted material or pornography. "We don't want to have to deal with obscenity and stuff like that," said Mayfield.

Wilson said he legally can't let people crowdfund who have been convicted of money laundering, fraud or those who are on the State Department's terror list. While Hatreon's community guidelines say the "site stands for free speech absolutism," Wilson reserves the right to kick people off if there are violent threats or illegal activity.


But revenge porn, the distribution of sexually explicit material without the subject's consent, is a gray area. Hatreon's terms of service are broad: "If you do harmful things we may cancel your account." Wilson admits that revenge porn is a "wrong and a direct harm," but since it's not illegal in all jurisdictions, it's not explicitly addressed and won't necessarily get you kicked off Hatreon.

As for his motivations, Wilson has a few.

"I'm making this stand because I have to carry on the tradition of the English civil liberties and free speech if no one else will," he said.

"The closest my politics comes to any traditional school is anarchism," he said. "I don't like the imposition of state controls over human creativity, freedom, individuality. The way to oppose these things is to undermine the powers of traditional liberal institutions."

This story originally published on October 29, 2017. (Watch the whole series Divided We Code)

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