Thread by @lizziedearden

The takedown of Parler is the latest blow to the British far right, which was unsuccessfully attempting to rebuild its online audience following waves of deplatforming by mainstream social networks

Extremists' reach has been "extraordinarily reduced"

independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-n…

Parler was among a cluster of niche social networks that extremists have been forced to rely on after bans by Facebook, Twitter and YouTube

The other popular fall-backs are Telegram (Twitter replacement), VK (Facebook replacement) and Bitchute (YouTube) replacement

But far-right figures have struggled to attract anywhere near the same audience as they had on mainstream networks

From a high of 1 million Facebook followers and 413,000 on Twitter, Tommy Robinson has now been left with under 100,000 followers on Telegram and Bitchute combined

Britain First had more than 2m likes on its Facebook page by the time it was deleted in 2018, with another 29,700 followers on Twitter and more for individual accounts run by then-leaders Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen

Its current main social - Telegram - has 18,417 subscribers

“If they continue to split themselves across a series of platforms, none of them will become viable in the long term,” said Joe Mulhall, a senior researcher at Hope Not Hate

“It has extraordinarily reduced extremists’ reach and that has been reflected in offline activism.”

Deplatforming has always created concern over segregation and unregulated spaces, which we have seen played out on Parler, Gab and Telegram

Mr Mulhall said that while it risks creating increasingly extreme “silos”, it reduces the ability to reach new followers and victims

Extremists have also sought to generate publicity and support by decrying social media "censorship", but had little success

Parler could come back, Gab is growing and a new platform may be created or co-opted, but so far it looks like the mainstream reach they once had is gone