Only 6% of US Adults Get News From Alt-Social Platforms Like Truth Social
Despite all the talk about alternative social networks like the Donald Trump-backed Truth Social, far fewer people regularly get their news from these platforms, according to a new survey from the Pew Research Center.
A report(Opens in a new window) released Thursday by the Washington-based subsidiary of the Pew Charitable Trusts finds that only 6% of US adults regularly get news from one or more of the following alternatives to mainstream social platforms: BitChute, Gab, Gettr, Parler, Rumble, Telegram, and Truth Social.
That’s far below the regular-news-consumption share earlier Pew surveys(Opens in a new window) have found for Facebook (31%), YouTube (25%), and even Twitter (14%), the last of which has been a frequent target of probably unconstitutional state laws banning social platforms from moderating content on any political principles.
But among the regulars at the seven sites Pew researchers surveyed for this report, 65% say they’ve found an online home there. The report says these people “largely say they are satisfied with their experience getting news on the sites, that they find the information there to be mostly accurate, and that the discussions are mostly friendly.”
Considering how many of these sites have positioned themselves as havens for supporters of the former president—whom mainstream sites banned after his lying about losing the 2020 selection to President Biden incited the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the Capitol—it should not be a surprise that Pew’s survey finds that 66% of regular news consumers at these sites “identify as Republicans or lean toward the Republican Party"; 33% self-ID as Democrats or Dem-leaning.
That almost inverts the split at mainstream social sites: 39% GOP or GOP-leaning,
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