Content Moderation and Hate Speech on Alternative Platforms: A Case Study of BitChute

Frustration with mainstream social media platforms and their content moderation decisions have prompted many users to search for “anti-censorship” alternatives, such as those in alt-tech, which may be used to share extreme or hateful content. The tension in alt-tech between limiting perceived censorship and reducing hate speech means that content moderation policies are essential but also controversial. Nevertheless, alt-tech content moderation policies are understudied. To address this research gap, we leverage quasi-experimental design to measure the impact of an “incitement to hatred” policy change using 5.2 million comments and the metadata of 800 thousand videos from the alt-tech platform BitChute. We uncover evidence for a “backlash effect,” finding that after the implementation of the policy, hate speech increased significantly for comments and video metadata. This study contributes to the literature on content moderation policies in a challenging context where users may not be receptive to perceived impositions.