The Rise in Use of Alternative Social Media Platforms for Illicit Activities

One of the biggest trends we have seen across the web in 2021 is the rise of dozens of alternative social media platforms and the increased use of these platforms for radical activities and incitement.

Many of these platforms were created as a reaction to moderation of content on mainstream social media and the consequent loss of trust among many users.

We have seen a significant increase in the number of alternative social media sites and platforms over the past year. As new platforms continue to emerge over the past year, we have doubled the number of alternative sites we cover, which now include 30 alternative sites and platforms.

Our team is closely monitoring these platforms and discovered that the top illicit discussions relate to radical views, conspiracy theories and incitement and organization of violent riots.

As more and more social media users are looking for hidden places to discuss radical activities, monitoring these alternative platforms has become essential for comprehensive web intelligence coverage. As new emerging extremist groups are taking to these unregulated platforms, we continue to monitor these platforms using relevant keywords, hashtags as well as tracing groups, pages and profiles that are related to radical activities.