New York Times reporters Natasha Singer and Nicholas Confessore led off their look at emerging conservative digital media apps with some unconscious irony (“Let’s Talk Politics. No Liberals Allowed.” The subhead: “Conservative Apps Build Networks Unhindered By Social Media Giants.”)
The opening to Monday’s front-page Business section story was giggle-worthy:
Imagine a society in which everyone more or less agrees with you.
You wake up in the morning to online greetings from people who share your views on guns, religion and country. Your news feed contains only posts from like-minded politicians or articles from like-minded news outlets. You can safely post your own comments without fear of vitriol from trolls or challenges from naysayers.
A liberal subscriber to the New York Times, perhaps?
This is the insular world in which tens of thousands of Americans who use conservative political apps are experiencing the midterm election season.
“Insular world”? Again, a pot-kettle situation. The reporters pressed their view of conservative social media world as a hostile members-only treehouse.
Amid a chorus of conservative complaints that Facebook and YouTube have become hostile to right-leaning views -- and as those social media giants take steps to limit what they see as abusive or misleading viral content -- a few Republican consultants have begun building a parallel digital universe where their political clients set the rules.
One start-up has built an app for the lobbying arm of the National Rifle Association that has been downloaded more than 150,000 times. Supporters of President Trump can download an app from Great America, a big-spending pro-Trump political action committee, or America First, Mr. Trump’s official 2016 campaign app, which has some features that remain active. Many backers of Senator Ted Cruz of Texas use Cruz Crew, an app built for his re-election campaign.
Eventually the paper let creators of apps like uCampaign (pictured here) explain why they would abandon the liberal social media outlets, who have earned a reputation for squelching and suppressing conservative speech. But they quickly followed up with a warning.
“People with center-right views feel like the big social platforms, Facebook and Twitter, are not sympathetic to their views,” said Thomas Peters, the chief executive of uCampaign, a start-up in Washington that developed the N.R.A., Great America and Trump campaign apps. “It’s creating a safe space for people who share a viewpoint, who feel like the open social networks are not fun places for them.”
Sheltered from the broader public, however, the platforms can intensify political polarization and social divisiveness, or circulate disinformation.
The reporters predictably found some distasteful messages posted on the alternative apps (though that's par for the course among ideological groups, including left-wing ones that are not typically singled out by the Times).
The Great America app juxtaposes a mix of enthusiastic posts about Mr. Trump and photos of puppies with anti-immigrant memes like “Today’s illegals, tomorrow’s Democrats.” One recent post, with an image depicting nooses, read: “Noose flash: Treason still punishable by death.”
Things got real when the talk turned to bashing the mainstream press; that’s when Singer and Confessore brought in the objective wisdom of....a former Obama campaign official?
The Great America app also hosts a ritual called “Fake News Friday,” in which it awards “Trump points” to users who post liberal-bashing, mainstream-media-trashing memes.
“Is this the beginning of the political Balkanization of digital engagement technologies?” asked Michael Slaby, a communications strategist who oversaw technology for President Barack Obama’s national campaigns. “Given the tribalism of current American politics, it’s possible.”
Given all that, it's unsurprising that the Times reporters were made to feel unwelcome:
Outsiders, for their part, can keep out.
Soon after a reporter for The New York Times contacted 10 users via the apps, a person with the user name Deplorable Dee posted on the Great America news feed: “Troll Alert!!! New York Times asking for interviews, do not communicate with these libtards.”
