Major social platforms stalled the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories in the run-up to the presidential election and expanded their efforts following the January 6 Capitol riot. But Apple and Google, among others, have left a huge void for this material: Podcasts.
Podcasts made available by the two Big Tech companies allow you to tap into the world of QAnon conspiracy theory, to fall into President Donald Trump’s false claims of a stolen election and to keep you in other extremism. Accounts banned on social media for misinformation, threats or bullying and violating other rules still persist as podcasts are available on the technology giant platforms.
Conspiracy theorists have spread stolen election fantasies, coronavirus conspiracies and violent rhetoric. One podcast, RedPill78, calls the Capitol siege a ‘staged event’ in a January 11 episode of Red Pill News. The day before the Capitol riot, a popular podcast, X22 Report, spoke confidently about Trump’s second term, explaining that Trump would have to “remove” many members of Congress to advance his plans, saying: “We the people, we are the storm, and we come to DC.”
Both are available on Apple and Google’s podcast platforms.
Podcasting “plays a particularly big role” in spreading white supremacy, a 2018 report of the Anti-Defamation League. Many white supremacists, such as QAnon supporters, support Trump. Podcasting is an intimate, humanizing way of communicating that allows extremists to put their ideas together for hours at a time, said Oren Segal of ADL’s Center for Extremism.
Elsewhere on social media, Twitter, Facebook and Youtube closed accounts that increase unfounded QAnon claims that Trump is deeply fighting state enemies and cannibals who trade in child sex. A major radio company, Cumulus, told its hosts to show rhetoric about stolen elections and violent uprisings or termination of risks, although it is not clear what impact the prescription had.
Google owns ‘Bannon’s War Room’, a channel run by Trump loyalist Steve Bannon on January 8 after spreading false election claims and the beheading of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the leading American expert on infectious diseases, beheaded. But podcast versions of Bannon’s program are currently being hosted by Apple and Google. Spotify took it down in November, according to one of his armies.
“Podcasts filled with hatred and incitement to violence should not be treated differently from any other content,” Segal said. “If you want to take a strong stand against hate and extremism on the platform at all, it has to include everything.”
Apple, Spotify and Google list top podcasts and recommend them to users. Apple and Spotify are the dominant players in the US, with other players far behind, said Dave Zohrob, CEO of podcast analysis firm Chartable. Despite the name recognition, Google remains a small presence.
Spotify has said it is removing podcasts that violate its anti-hate speech, copyright infringement or infringement policies, using ‘algorithmic and human detection measures’ to identify infringements. Apple’s guidelines prohibits content that is illegal or promotes violence, graphic sex or drugs, or that is “otherwise considered obscene, offensive or in bad taste”. Apple did not respond to repeated questions about the content guidelines or their moderation.
Google did not want to differentiate between what is available on YouTube and what is stated on Google Podcasts, and only says that its podcast service indexes ‘audio available on the Internet’ just as the search engine indexes web pages. The company said it was removing podcasts from its platform “in very rare circumstances, mainly led by local law.”
X22 Report and Bannon’s War Room were number 20 and 32 on Apple’s list of top podcasts on Friday. (Experts believe the list measures the momentum of a podcast rather than the total listeners.) X22 Report said in October that it was suspended by YouTube and Spotify and last week by Twitter. It is also no longer available on Facebook. It is supported by advertisements for products such as survival foods, unlicensed food supplements and gold coins, which are offered before and during the podcasts.
The Red Pill News website said YouTube banned its videos in October and that a suspension on Twitter followed. The podcast is available on Apple and Google, but not Spotify.
Several QAnon proponents affected by the crackdown sued YouTube in Octoberand calls his actions a ‘massive deployment’. Among the plaintiffs are X22 Report, RedPill78 and David Hayes, who run another conspiracy podcast called Praying Medic, which is available on Apple and Google, but not Spotify.
Melody Torres, who has podcasts at SoulWarrior Uncensored, identifies her as a longtime QAnon follower and said in a recent episode that her podcast “is just my way of not being censored.” She said she was kicked off Twitter in January and launched from Instagram four times last year. She currently has Instagram, Facebook and YouTube accounts; her podcast is available on Spotify, Apple and Google.
X22 Report, RedPill78 and Hayes did not respond to requests for comment sent via their websites. Torres did not respond to a Facebook message.
Podcasts suffer from the same misinformation problem as other platforms, said Shane Creevey, head of the Kinzen editorial. A startup created by former Facebook and Twitter executives that provides a disinformation tracker to companies, including some that offer podcasts.
Creevey points out that it is more difficult to analyze incorrect information from video and audio than from text. Podcasts can also run for hours, making them difficult to monitor. And podcasting has additional challenges in that there are no reliable statistics about their audience, other than a YouTube stream, which shows views, or a tweet or Facebook post that shows likes and shares, Creevey said.
But some argue that moderation of technology ventures is opaque and contradictory, creating a new set of problems. Censorship “goes hand in hand with what’s popular at any given time,” said Jillian York, an expert on the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group. At the moment, she said, “that the tide is against the speech of right-wing extremists … but tomorrow the tide may be against opposition activists.”
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AP technology editor David Hamilton contributed to this article.