Luke Rudkowski, who leads an organization that perpetuates 9/11 and New World Order conspiracy theories and has almost half a million YouTube subscribers, said the far right was witnessing "the beginning of the YouTube purge" that would result in the "end times of this beautiful and amazing platform."
After he said earlier this month that YouTube had demonetized his videos, Rudkowski said he would channel his efforts into Steemit, a Reddit-style social-media site that allows popular users to earn cryptocurrency, but noted it would be difficult to persuade his subscribers to leave the platform.
Other users have begun trying to build followings on YouTube alternatives, but they seem to have persuaded only a fraction of their audiences to follow their videos.
Last month, the Infowars conspiracy theorist and vlogger Paul Joseph Watson called on his supporters to follow him to BitChute.
And while he has posted his videos on both YouTube and BitChute, those that have racked up hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube haven't gotten more than a few thousand views apiece on BitChute.
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In a separate video in which he suggested he may leave YouTube, he acknowledged that there was "no competition to YouTube," saying he needed "to seriously think about whether it's worth investing hundreds and hundreds of hours of my time every year into something that could just completely disappear when I wake up tomorrow morning."
Watson has seemed to have better luck on Minds, a secure social network launched in 2015 with the support of some of the activist collective Anonymous, where he has racked up over 1.2 million total views and close to 70,000 subscribers.
But if that app's purpose is to partially financially support users, his popularity hasn't appeared to translate to serious money the app, which lets you send digital cash, said Watson had received $0 in the past 30 days.
Other platforms have marketed themselves as havens for the far right but have struggled to attract influencers in that sphere willing to dedicate significant amounts of time or content to the platform.
Founded by a supporter of President Donald Trump who was kicked out of the startup incubator Y Combinator's alumni network over allegations of harassment, the Reddit-style social network Gab has advertised itself as a platform for unregulated free speech. It has wooed just under 200,000 users by hosting influential figures booted from other platforms.
The Fox News host Tucker Carlson mentioned Gab earlier this month, citing Milo Yiannopoulos, the former Breitbart News provocateur, as an example of an influencer who had joined the social-networking site since being kicked off Twitter.
But Yiannopoulos' activity on Gab appears perfunctory he has posted fewer than 10 times in the past month, almost exclusively urging people to join Gab and explaining how it works. Meanwhile, he continues to share memes, videos, and links multiple times a day on his Facebook account.
http://www.businessinsider.com/far-right-tech-platforms-gab-youtube-bitchute-2017-9
More at the link.