British video hosting service
BitChute
|
Type of site
| Online video platform
|
---|
Available in
| English
|
---|
Country of origin
| United Kingdom
|
---|
Created by
| Ray Vahey
|
---|
Parent
| Bit Chute Limited
|
---|
URL
| www
.bitchute
.com
|
---|
Registration
| Optional
|
---|
Launched
| January 2017
; 7 years ago
(
2017-01
)
|
---|
Current status
| Active
|
---|
BitChute
is an
alt-tech
video hosting service
launched by Ray Vahey in January 2017.
[1]
It describes itself as offering
freedom of speech
,
[2]
[3]
while the service is known for hosting
far-right
individuals,
conspiracy theorists
, and
hate speech
.
[a]
[b]
Some creators who use BitChute have been banned from
YouTube
; some others
crosspost
content to both platforms or post more extreme content only to BitChute.
[4]
[16]
Before its deprecation, BitChute claimed to use
peer-to-peer
WebTorrent
technology for video distribution,
[1]
though this was disputed.
[17]
[18]
History
Bit Chute Limited
, BitChute's corporate identity, was registered by Ray Vahey in January 2017 in
Newbury
, England.
[2]
[19]
[20]
Its name was conceived from a
portmanteau
of the words "
bit
", a unit of information in computing, and "
parachute
."
[21]
At the time of the site's launch, Vahey described BitChute as an alternative to mainstream platforms; he believed these platforms had demonstrated "increased levels of censorship" over the previous few years by banning and demonetising users (
barring them from receiving advertising revenue
), and "tweaking algorithms to send certain content into obscurity".
[1]
In 2018, the creators of BitChute described themselves as a "small team making a stand against Internet censorship because we believe it is the right thing to do."
[22]
In November 2018, BitChute was banned from
PayPal
.
[23]
[24]
PayPal also banned
Alex Jones
, the
Proud Boys
,
Tommy Robinson
, and several
anti-fascist
groups and users at the same time.
[23]
In 2019, crowdfunding website
IndieGogo
also banned BitChute.
[14]
BitChute has also been banned from using
Patreon
and
Stripe
.
[17]
In January 2019, BitChute announced in a post on
Gab
that they would move their domains over to
Epik
, a small domain registrar known for accepting the registration of websites that host far-right content.
[11]
[25]
In March 2020, a new provision to Germany's
Network Enforcement Act
required social media companies to report instances of hate speech on their platforms to authorities. However, online news platform
Coda
reported that while the law applies to platforms including YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, BitChute is one of the platforms not affected by the provision.
[26]
In early August 2020,
Twitter
began blocking posts linking to the site, later showing a warning to users who clicked on the links.
[27]
[14]
As of January 2021, BitChute was in the process of being reported to
Ofcom
by the
Community Security Trust
after discovering
Holocaust denial
and Holocaust glorification content on the website, among other content considered harmful by the charity such as
conspiracy theories related to COVID-19
.
[28]
The trust's blog stated this will be an important test case for Ofcom's new role regarding regulation of social media in the United Kingdom, especially concerning extremism and hateful content.
[29]
Also in January, BitChute added "incitement to hatred" to its list of prohibited content, using the definition from the United Kingdom's Audiovisual Media Services Regulations 2020,
[30]
though
Bellingcat
wrote the following month that "racist slurs, Nazi imagery and calls for violence against Jews remained common in video comment sections."
[14]
In June 2023,
Police Scotland
launched an investigation into content published on BitChute that directed abuse and threats towards
First Minister
Humza Yousaf
after receiving a complaint from his office. The content included several
Red Ice
videos featuring American
white supremacist
Lana Lokteff
, one of which called for Yousaf to "
go back
" to Pakistan.
[31]
Content
Since launching, BitChute has accommodated
far-right
groups and individuals.
[a]
The
Southern Poverty Law Center
wrote in 2019 that the site hosts "hate-fueled material", the
Anti-Defamation League
wrote in 2020 that "BitChute has become a hotbed for violent, conspiratorial and hate-filled video propaganda, and a recruiting ground for extremists", and
Bellingcat
wrote in 2021 that the platform was "rife with racism and hate speech".
[11]
[12]
[14]
According to a 2020 report from anti-extremism group
Hope not Hate
, BitChute "actively promotes" content which was removed from other platforms as
hate speech
. Hope not Hate also documented videos hosted on BitChute supporting or produced by terrorist groups, including
ISIS
and the neo-Nazi groups
National Action
and
Atomwaffen Division
.
[3]
[13]
A June 2020 report from British Jewish group Community Security Trust said that some terrorist videos had been on the site for over a year, and that BitChute only removes this content when forced to.
[8]
[32]
An academic analysis published in July 2020 using a
data set
gathered in 2019 over five months found that BitChute had more hate speech than Gab, but less than 4chan. It found that only a small group of channels on the network had any meaningful engagement, almost all of which pushed conspiracy- and hate-laden content. Like the research from Hope not Hate, this analysis found content promoting the Atomwaffen Division posted to BitChute, including a recruitment video.
[16]
The neo-Nazi propaganda film
Europa: The Last Battle
has been uploaded to multiple BitChute channels.
[15]
BitChute's founder Ray Vahey has described BitChute as "politically neutral".
[23]
Hope Not Hate wrote in their 2020 report that "in actuality, the company chooses to almost exclusively promote content and producers that engage in hate speech and harmful misinformation" and that the "vile and dangerous content that abounds on BitChute is a result of deliberate decisions on the part of their founder and team".
[13]
Bellingcat
reported in 2021 that Vahey used the platform's Twitter account to promote
antisemitic conspiracy theories
,
COVID-19 misinformation
, and
QAnon
content.
[14]
BitChute is part of a group of "
alt-tech
" websites that position themselves as less strictly-moderated alternatives to mainstream social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.
[7]
[10]
Deen Freelon and colleagues writing in
Science
characterised BitChute as among the alt-tech sites that are "dedicated to right-wing communities", and listed the site along with
4chan
,
8chan
,
Parler
, and
Gab
. They noted there are also more ideologically neutral alt-tech platforms, such as
Discord
and
Telegram
.
[10]
Joe Mulhall of the UK anti-racism group Hope Not Hate has categorised BitChute among the "bespoke platforms" for the far-right, which he defines as platforms which were created by people who themselves have "far-right leanings". He distinguishes these from "co-opted platforms" such as
DLive
and Telegram, which were adopted by the far-right due to minimal moderation but not specifically created for their use.
[14]
Some creators who have been banned from YouTube or had their channels demonetised subsequently migrated to BitChute.
[4]
The far-right conspiracy theory channel
InfoWars
migrated to BitChute after being banned by YouTube in 2018.
[2]
Other creators maintain a presence on YouTube and on BitChute, and some post more extreme content on BitChute while using YouTube for less extreme material.
[16]
Prominent far-right and
alt-right
video creators who have cross-posted to both YouTube and BitChute include
Lauren Southern
,
Stefan Molyneux
,
Millennial Woes
, and
Paul Joseph Watson
.
[4]
[5]
[22]
The platform also hosts
misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic
.
[3]
The conspiracy theory video
Plandemic
has been viewed on BitChute millions of times after having been removed from other platforms for spreading medically harmful misinformation.
[33]
[34]
[13]
Model
BitChute does not rely on advertising, and users can send payments to video creators directly.
[22]
Since its launch, the site has promoted its use of the
peer-to-peer
technology
WebTorrent
as a means to
decentralise
hosting and reduce costs.
[1]
BitChute allows creators to monetise the videos they publish on the platform by linking to fundraising websites including SubscribeStar, PayPal, and
cryptocurrency
processors. Although PayPal banned BitChute themselves from using their service, BitChute still links to PayPal pages for creators who choose to use them.
[14]
At launch, the site claimed it was using peer-to-peer WebTorrent technology.
[1]
However, a November 2019 report by
Fredrick Brennan
, published in
The Daily Dot
, failed to find any evidence of peer-to-peer data transfer in BitChute's videos.
[17]
All videos Brennan downloaded came directly from BitChute's servers, with no part of the videos received from peers. According to Brennan,
magnet links
on the site do not work. Brennan challenged BitChute's use of the word "delist" to describe deplatforming users, saying that the wording is misleading in that it makes BitChute seem falsely similar to BitTorrent (where a site maintains one "list" of content, but independent
trackers
may be created as well), when in reality BitChute is just deleting a user's videos from the BitChute site.
[17]
According to
Ars Technica
in April 2021, the option to host videos using WebTorrent on BitChute "appears to have been deprecated".
[18]
See also
Notes
References
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
Maxwell, Andy (29 January 2017).
"BitChute is a BitTorrent-Powered YouTube Alternative"
.
TorrentFreak
.
Archived
from the original on 9 December 2017
. Retrieved
10 December
2017
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
Schroeder, Audra (2 November 2018).
"Far-right conspiracy vloggers have a new home"
.
The Daily Dot
.
Archived
from the original on 4 May 2019
. Retrieved
4 May
2019
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
Dearden, Lizzie (22 July 2020).
"Inside the UK-based site that has become the far right's YouTube"
.
The Independent
.
Archived
from the original on 5 August 2020
. Retrieved
14 August
2020
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
Daro, Ishmael N.; Lytvynenko, Jane (18 April 2018).
"Right-Wing YouTubers Think It's Only A Matter Of Time Before They Get Kicked Off The Site"
.
BuzzFeed News
.
Archived
from the original on 5 July 2018
. Retrieved
4 May
2019
.
- ^
a
b
Tani, Maxwell (22 September 2017).
"
'There's no one for right-wingers to pick a fight with': The far right is struggling to sustain interest in its social media platforms"
.
Business Insider
.
Archived
from the original on 8 December 2017
. Retrieved
10 December
2017
.
- ^
Robertson, Adi (9 October 2017).
"Two months ago, the internet tried to banish Nazis. No one knows if it worked"
.
The Verge
.
Archived
from the original on 4 April 2018
. Retrieved
24 May
2019
.
- ^
a
b
Livni, Ephrat (12 May 2019).
"Twitter, Facebook, and Insta bans send the alt-right to Gab and Telegram"
.
Quartz
.
Archived
from the original on 24 May 2019
. Retrieved
24 May
2019
.
The far right have plenty of places to go when they are no longer welcome on mainstream platforms?like Parler, Minds, MeWe, and BitChute, among others.
- ^
a
b
Doward, Jamie; Townsend, Mark (28 June 2020).
"The UK social media platform where neo-Nazis can view terror atrocities"
.
The Guardian
.
ISSN
0029-7712
.
Archived
from the original on 13 August 2020
. Retrieved
14 August
2020
.
- ^
Tighe, Mark; Galvin, Joe (31 January 2021).
"Facebook acts as conspiracy theories on Covid in Ireland go viral"
.
The Times
. Retrieved
18 May
2021
.
- ^
a
b
c
Freelon, Deen; Marwick, Alice; Kreiss, Daniel (4 September 2020). "False equivalencies: Online activism from left to right".
Science
.
369
(6508): 1197?1201.
Bibcode
:
2020Sci...369.1197F
.
doi
:
10.1126/science.abb2428
.
ISSN
0036-8075
.
PMID
32883863
.
S2CID
221471947
.
- ^
a
b
c
Hayden, Michael Edison (11 January 2019).
"A Problem of Epik Proportions"
.
Southern Poverty Law Center
.
Archived
from the original on 12 January 2019
. Retrieved
12 January
2019
.
- ^
a
b
"BitChute: A Hotbed of Hate"
.
Anti-Defamation League
. 31 August 2020.
Archived
from the original on 4 September 2020
. Retrieved
4 September
2020
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
Davis, Gregory (20 July 2020).
"Bitchute: Platforming Hate and Terror in the UK"
(PDF)
.
Hope not Hate
.
Archived
from the original on 8 August 2020
. Retrieved
18 August
2020
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
Andrews, Frank; Pym, Ambrose (24 February 2021).
"The Websites Sustaining Britain's Far-Right Influencers"
.
Bellingcat
.
Archived
from the original on 24 February 2021
. Retrieved
25 February
2021
.
- ^
a
b
Siapera, Eugenia (24 July 2023).
"Alt Tech and the public sphere: Exploring Bitchute as a political media infrastructure"
.
European Journal of Communication
.
38
(5): 446?465.
doi
:
10.1177/02673231231189041
.
ISSN
0267-3231
.
In addition, the platform hosts more extreme content, including overtly misogynist, racist and supremacist channels. For example, the antisemitic and neo-Nazi film Europa ? the Last Battle (2017), a 10-h film which is banned from YouTube, is found across several Bitchute channels.
- ^
a
b
c
Trujillo, Milo; Gruppi, Mauricio; Buntain, Cody; Horne, Benjamin D. (13 July 2020). "What is BitChute?: Characterizing the".
Proceedings of the 31st ACM Conference on Hypertext and Social Media
.
Association for Computing Machinery
. pp. 139?140.
arXiv
:
2004.01984
.
doi
:
10.1145/3372923.3404833
.
ISBN
9781450370981
.
S2CID
220434725
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
Brennan, Fredrick
(27 November 2019).
"Bitchute claims to be a decentralized platform?that's not true"
.
The Daily Dot
.
Archived
from the original on 28 November 2019
. Retrieved
28 November
2019
.
- ^
a
b
Chant, Tim De (29 April 2021).
"Conspiracy theorist said death threats were "jokes"?but jury didn't buy it"
.
Ars Technica
.
Archived
from the original on 29 April 2021
. Retrieved
18 May
2021
.
- ^
"Bit Chute Limited ? Overview"
.
Companies House
.
Archived
from the original on 9 December 2019
. Retrieved
14 August
2020
.
- ^
"BitChute ? Terms & Conditions"
. BitChute.
Archived
from the original on 15 August 2020
. Retrieved
14 August
2020
.
- ^
"BitChute"
. Archived from the original on 3 March 2018
. Retrieved
10 April
2022
.
{{
cite web
}}
: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (
link
)
(pop-up notice)
- ^
a
b
c
Alexander, Julia (7 March 2018).
"Controversial YouTubers head to alternative platforms in wake of 'purge'
"
.
Polygon
.
Archived
from the original on 4 May 2019
. Retrieved
4 May
2019
.
- ^
a
b
c
Blake, Andrew (14 November 2018).
"BitChute, YouTube alternative, cries foul over apparent punt from PayPal"
.
The Washington Times
.
Archived
from the original on 27 November 2018
. Retrieved
28 November
2018
.
- ^
Newton, Casey (15 November 2018).
"Facebook has a growing morale problem"
.
The Verge
.
Archived
from the original on 4 May 2019
. Retrieved
4 May
2019
.
- ^
Martineau, Paris (6 November 2018).
"How Right-Wing Social Media Site Gab Got Back Online"
.
Wired
.
ISSN
1059-1028
.
Archived
from the original on 2 May 2019
. Retrieved
4 May
2019
.
- ^
Butini, Cecilia (2 March 2020).
"Germany to force social media companies to report hate speech to police"
.
Coda
.
Archived
from the original on 8 August 2020
. Retrieved
14 August
2020
.
- ^
P, Jamie (7 August 2020).
"Bitchute Blocked by Twitter? Here's Why"
.
Tech Times
.
Archived
from the original on 15 December 2020
. Retrieved
14 August
2020
.
- ^
Hamilton, Fiona.
"
'Hateful' BitChute video site is first test for Ofcom"
.
The Times
.
ISSN
0140-0460
. Retrieved
2 February
2021
.
- ^
"BitChute - A Very British Problem"
.
Community Security Trust
. 28 January 2021.
Archived
from the original on 28 January 2021
. Retrieved
2 February
2021
.
- ^
"Community Guidelines"
. BitChute.
Archived
from the original on 28 April 2020
. Retrieved
25 February
2021
.
- ^
McLaughlin, Martyn (3 June 2023).
"Police Scotland launches investigation into racist abuse and threats aimed at Humza Yousaf"
.
The Scotsman
.
Archived
from the original on 3 June 2023
. Retrieved
16 August
2023
.
- ^
Zonshine, Idan (15 June 2020).
"New UK report exposes massive online network of far-right antisemitism"
.
The Jerusalem Post
.
Archived
from the original on 18 August 2020
. Retrieved
19 August
2020
.
- ^
Lytvynenko, Jane (1 June 2020).
"After The "Plandemic" Video Went Viral In The US, It Was Exported To The Rest Of The World"
.
BuzzFeed News
.
Archived
from the original on 7 August 2020
. Retrieved
19 August
2020
.
- ^
Bellemare, Andrea; Nicholson, Katie; Ho, Jason (21 May 2020).
"How a debunked COVID-19 video kept spreading after Facebook and YouTube took it down"
.
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
.
Archived
from the original on 20 August 2020
. Retrieved
19 August
2020
.
|
---|
|
Free
| |
---|
Rental and purchase
| |
---|
Others
| |
---|
Discontinued
| |
---|