‘Free Speech’ Social-Media Apps See Enormous Growth After the Election

Dave Wright, a Trump supporter based in Decatur, Illinois, was sick and tired of Facebook. A video he had posted in September of a woman reportedly being arrested for not wearing a mask was flagged for spreading misinformation, and last week during the election, a screengrab he shared hinting at false claims of electoral fraud in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, was similarly flagged by the platform. Someone close to him was also permanently banned from Twitter for posting in support of Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old who was charged with killing two people in Kenosha, Wisconsin last August.

So Wright decided to start an account on MeWe, a social networking app that has touted itself as the “free-speech” alternative to Facebook. He’s only been on it a day, but so far, he’s a fan. “MeWe ought to start planning, cuz a red wave is coming!” he wrote in a post.

In the wake of the 2020 election, as Facebook and Twitter are taking increasingly more rigorous stances against the spread of disinformation, Trump supporters like Wright are migrating elsewhere — specifically, to less moderated, more extremist-friendly social networks.