Talk:Alt-tech

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 95.91.247.87 (talk) at 01:35, 3 January 2022 (→‎Article Neutrality). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 26 August 2020 and 2 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): RiaVora (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Bryankjh, Jeshgus, Kyle.chan201, Go23bears, VillusionV, Sid900.

Ria's Bibliography

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] RiaVora (talk) 02:03, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ https://money.cnn.com/2017/11/10/technology/culture/divided-we-code-alt-tech/index.html
  2. ^ https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/27372/9783839446706.pdf?sequence=1#page=50
  3. ^ https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13183222.2018.1423947
  4. ^ https://jods.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/k109mlhg/release/1
  5. ^ https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/27372/9783839446706.pdf?sequence=1
  6. ^ https://www.wired.com/story/alt-tech-social-media/
  7. ^ https://www.fairobserver.com/business/technology/alt-tech-far-right-online-extremism-hate-speech-technology-news-19919/
  8. ^ https://news.gab.com/2020/01/23/the-importance-of-alt-tech-platforms-a-success-story/
  9. ^ https://www.radicalrightanalysis.com/2019/09/24/alt-tech-the-radical-right-part-2-inside-the-radical-rights-video-addiction/

Hey Ria,

Overall, the article is pretty good, providing insight to a topic that has not been explored yet on Wikipedia. In terms of some feedback on the article, I believe that the article is informative on what alt-tech is; however, I think that you should some more sections to alt-tech. For example, describe some potential ramifications of such websites of alt-tech on society. The article does maintain a good stance of neutrality and does not lean towards one side as in labeling whether or not alt tech is good or bad. The sources are overall pretty solid as most of the websites are well known; however some like Hope Not Hate researcher is an advocacy organization which thus presents a bias source. furthermore, radical right analysis seems like an unreliable news source as well. Kyle.chan201 (talk) 21:58, 13 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hey RiaVora and Kyle.chan201! So cool to see that this quick article I wrote up is a part of a school project, and I'm happy to help at all if you need anything – I actually was a "Campus Ambassador" for the WikiEd program years ago and so have some familiarity with the WikiEd programs, though I have no idea if Campus Ambassadors are even still a thing :)
Regarding Hope not Hate: you're quite right that Hope Not Hate is a biased sources, given that it's an advocacy organizations. However I did want to clarify that biased sources are usable, though we have to be careful. Generally I use in-text attribution with organizations like Hope Not Hate. For example, "According to the UK advocacy group Hope not Hate, ...". This provides context to the reader around the source's potential bias, but also allows us to include what is often valuable information. There is more information on the topic of biased sources available as a part of the reliable sourcing policy at WP:BIASEDSOURCE.
Regarding the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right: I'm not sure that's a biased source. It's certainly not pro radical right, but it seems more like an academic effort than an advocacy one. It might be worth starting a discussion at WP:RSN to get input from others on whether it can be used as any other source or if it ought to be attributed in-text as with HnH. I've used the CARR as a source in another article I work on, Incel, and it looks like I do mention it in-text, but it's also accompanying a direct quote, so I don't think I included the name of the source for BIASEDSOURCE reasons.
One other note: the Gab source is also a bit iffy, given that they are themselves a part of the alt-tech ecosystem. However it could certainly be used in a similar way as the HnH source, or for quotes or something. GorillaWarfare (talk) 23:08, 13 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi GorillaWarfare, thank you for reaching out! It was really interesting to dive deeper into three alt-tech technologies, research them and search for unbiased sources, and combine the information together. Please let me know what you think of my current contribution to the article and any ideas / suggestions / changes you have! RiaVora (talk) 00:23, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@RiaVora: I just did a quick copyedit of the sections you added, and marked a few places where I think better sourcing is needed. However, I'm not really sure I see the value in adding a section with examples of alt-tech sites—many if not most of them have Wikipedia articles of their own, and it seems to duplicate a lot of information to add those here. I thought Kyle.chan201's suggestions of content to add was good, and it might make more sense to focus more on alt-tech as a whole than describe individual websites and platforms. GorillaWarfare (talk) 23:12, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

WASP Love defunct?

This article marks WASP Love as defunct. Their site seems to be up, though their blog (?) and Twitter seem to have gone quiet around 2016-2017. That NYT citation on the article's chart says the journalist managed to successfully sign up for the website in 2020, so I assume it's still functional. Something happen since then, or should this be changed? --Chillabit (talk) 11:45, 10 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed the "defunct" label for that site. Some sites were marked as "defunct" without the addition of RS, which we probably ought to rectify. The nature of alt-tech sites means they tend to go offline occasionally, which does not always mean they are permanently defunct. It has happened to both Gab and Parler, for example, both of which are back online currently. GorillaWarfare (talk) 22:15, 10 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Rename article suggestion, unfair to non-extreme platforms

Far-right misinformation on mainstream social networks has been discussed widely in media. Such articles focus mostly on Facebook but also on Twitter and TikTok which have had QAnon conspiracy theories for example.

By comparison, the term "alt-tech" is not that common and is not used in many of the cited sources in this article. As mentioned a few times in the talk page archives, the article's name and scope is unfair to non-mainstream social networks by suggesting all alternatives would be far-right. This has been somewhat addressed with edits, for example the removal of Discord, but the title is misleading and WP:SYNTH remains.

In most sources alternative social networks do not have these connotations, they include WT.Social founded by Jimmy Wales himself as an alternative to Facebook.

The title is also misleading at the expense of environmentally-friendly alternative technology. This on top of the fact that "alt-tech" is just not a common term and is used as an offhand portmanteau in quotation marks most of the times it is used.

I would suggest moving the article to the descriptive names "Fringe right social networks", "Far right social networks" or something along those lines. Other suggestions are welcome.

Arguably, it's the same issue with the Wikipedia article for "intellectual dark web" ended up popularizing the phenomenon before it was even notable enough for Wikipedia. That movement was enough of a joke to start fizzling out already, but it appeared more "intellectual" because of that term, as others were citing Wikipedia. Rauisuchian (talk) 20:38, 28 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Which sources don't mention alt-tech? GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 21:46, 28 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
To clarify, it's only the article title and first few words I suggest modifying, as well as potentially some phrasing like "more mainstream services". A possible change to the first sentence could be "Far right social networks, sometimes called 'alt-tech', are a group..."
Sources that don't directly use the term "alt-tech" still have important information about these platforms such as their nature as propagandistic echo chambers, etc. Tons of articles (across media and not just the reference list here) have been written about the disruptiveness of these platforms, but only a few of them use the term "alt-tech". In the ref list most do, and the article is well-cited, but in a survey of the news articles on the topic, most this is not necessarily the term used.
Based on what I can see without journal access, several of the cited sources do not use the term "alt-tech". From skimming and find text, sources 9 (Houston Chronicle), 11 (Forward), 13 (Politico), 18 (Business Insider), 21 (The Independent), 27 (The Daily Beast), 33 (Business Insider) and perhaps a few others. The ones not listed do use the term "alt-tech". So yes, a lot of the sources do use the term. However, mostly in quotation marks. Others also say "alternative" in scare quotes preceded by conservative or right wing to emphasize the alternative part is only a claim. made by these platforms that maintain one viewpoint.
Nonetheless, a huge number of reliable source articles such as the New York Times, Vox, Guardian, etc. that mention Parler or Gab do not use the term "alt-tech", even in the last year. For example, comparing the number of Google results, the cited New York Times article is the sole article in the entire NY Times site that uses the term "alt tech", while there are many dozens or hundreds of articles about "Gab", "Parler", or about the far right on social media, written on the NY Times site overall.
You can repeat the same searches for many sources like The Guardian, and they'll only have one or two mentions of "alt-tech" on the whole site, but many more of specific platform's names, or of 'far right' or 'pro-Trump' social media platforms. All of those articles are worthy of citing, but it shows that "alt tech" is not the most common term that could be used as the main title. Rauisuchian (talk) 23:20, 28 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
If that is the case, my thought would be that we need to bring the article back down to focus on alt-tech rather than broadening it. "Alt-tech" is the noteworthy term here; I don't think an article on "far right social networks" (which not all of these are) is really encyclopedic content. I don't have the time to look into the sourcing in depth this evening but I will try to go through it soon. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 23:47, 28 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That makes sense, narrower scope and more focused is better. At the same time, articles that do not directly state "alt-tech" but talk about the exact same concept, may have important information to include about extremists and misinformation on social media. Rauisuchian (talk) 23:15, 29 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I sincerely think as a left leaning centrist, that this article beginning this way smacks of severe bias. Yes, some alt-tech sites are dominated by, or intended for, right leaning individuals, or people with extreme positions. However anti-authoritarianism is not in itself a winged position, and the degree to which such sites even focus on free speech varies a lot. At best, it's an extremely low resolution way to introduce the topic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 43.249.199.55 (talk • contribs) 07:36, 6 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The overwhelming majority of reliable sources agree with the descriptions of alt-tech given in the Wiki article. If you have any reliable sources that suggest otherwise, feel free to share some. X-Editor (talk) 21:32, 9 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Article Neutrality

The term alt-tech seems extremely loosely defined and I tried to reflect that with some edits just now.

The definition seems to go from clearly politically positioned platforms that are alt-right or far-right oriented alternatives to some mainstream platform, to platforms which host do host alt-right groups but are not directly comparable to any mainstream platform, to platforms which are the mainstream platform of their niche. As someone unfamiliar with these platforms I would understand the definition of the article, i.e. these platforms being alternatives to something, as all of them being like Gab is to Twitter when it's pretty much indisputable something like Discord really doesn't fit that definition at all (alternative to what?).

I also removed the "Freedom Phone" paragraph. None of the sources uses the term "Alt-Tech". Not everything that has something to do with Trump and technology is "alt-tech", the term is mostly associated with social media platforms.

Lastly, the section about Discord being an "alt-right" platform made no sense. The Science article sourced is from 2020, the Forbes article discusses actions to remove alt-right groups that took place three years earlier. On top of the article beginning by discussing BLM groups on the platform. It feels like whoever wrote that paragraph read the headline of the Forbes article and nothing else.--95.91.247.87 (talk) 01:00, 3 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Black Kite Why were my edits reverted without any comment? --95.91.247.87 (talk) 01:29, 3 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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