PewTube

pew.tube was a YouTube alternative operated by Anthony Mayfield with the self-proclaimed intention of being censorship-free.[3] This appears to be just a dogwhistle, as the creator frequently supported alt-right positions and attacks leftists. Fittingly, the website was flooded with alt-right and conspiracist videos.

PewTube logo
Frogs, clowns and swastikas
Alt-right
Chuds
Rebuilding the Reich, one meme at a time
Buzzwords and dogwhistles
v - t - e
PewTube founder Anthony Mayfield (left, making 👌🏻 sign) with Jordan Peterson (right)[1]
—PewTube speaking on Gab.ai[2]

As of October 2017, pew.tube received between 100,000 and 500,000 monthly visits.[4][5] The site failed to gain any substantial support, and faded away in 2018.[6] In March 2020, PewTube’s Gab account announced NodeTube, an open source version of the PewTube code.[7]

Self-identification
“”A YouTube and SoundCloud alternative that isn't run by Goolag[sic]
—description on-site[8]
“”Free Speech alternative to YouTube and Soundcloud which doesn't censor wrongthink.
—description on Twitter[9]

PewTube declares that it is a YouTube and SoundCloud alternative. However, its focus on free speech is specifically directed against political correctness:

This platform is for creators to upload audio and video without fear of politically correct censorship[10]

Top 3 groups of people who need to back-up their material on PewTube:
1) Gamers (especially those who are politically incorrect)
2) Second amendment folks who are getting banned by YouTube in droves
3) Conservatives, who[sic] YouTube has made clear aren't welcome on their platform[11]

PewTube's name is based on PewDiePie, a videogame streamer.[12]

Content
“”PewTube is still small — it just passed 400,000 total video streams. And the content is mostly amateur postings, much of it extremely disturbing — including videos that glorify mass murderer Dylan Roof,File:Wikipedia's W.svg those that equate black protesters with primates from "Planet of the Apes," and one that puts Holocaust atrocities to the tune of Simon and Garfunkel's "Sound of Silence."
—Jordan Malter[3]

Because the website has a no-censorship policy, users are free to post whatever legal content they want. The website's content is currently dominated by alt-right- and 4chan-friendly videos. On 12 November 2017, some of the most popular videos of all time were:[13]

  • "Moldylocks camgirl session raided by 4chan", allegedly depicting a woman who got sucker punched by Identity Evropa founder Nathan Benjamin Damigo in Berkeley[14]
  • "Episode 1: The reddit cuck discovers pol", featuring typical alt-right glorification of /pol/ (3k views)[15]
  • "Rare Hitler Speech (English Subtitles) 1939 Defeat of Poland" (3k views)[16]
  • "Trump Won't Win Montage 2" (2k views)[17]
  • "INSANE MANDALAY BAY FOOTAGE- PROOF OF MULTIPLE SHOOTERS", posted by "Go_Full_Breivik_1488" (2k views)[18]
  • "Obvious Multiple Shooters At Las Vegas", posted by "LasVegasResearch" (1k views)[19]

While PewTube may have problematic videos, their terms of service do nominally censor libel, porn, stalking, bullying, promotion of crime, promotion of terrorism, copyright violation, and viruses.[20]

Gab.ai posts

PewTube's Gab.ai account reads exactly like an alt-righter:

The internet doesn't feel the same since Dailystormer had their domain seized, Gab threatened to have their domain seized, and all social media began their big crackdown, Internet feels threatened now & that's what drove me to fight back with PewTube[21]

Cultural war waged by Marxists, will end up in a hot civil war if they keep pushing this hard[22]

Hopefully we can just fight it in the cultural and political sphere with things like PewTube, but these hard-core far-leftists are really out for blood these days, we'll see what happens[23]

Thank God we averted this disaster [image of Hillary Clinton][24]

PewTube is also pleased to be mentioned on GoyFundMe.[25]

Censorship of leftists
“”I really wanted to allow the far-left (communists etc) to use the platform, but they have been so mean and nasty—not good for a community!
—@Pew_Tube_ on Twitter (deleted)[26]

Leftists allege that PewTube has removed their very-popular videos (including the anthem of the USSR and an audiobook of the Communist Manifesto).[27][28][29] After these deletions, PewTube changed its signup page to read:

Pausing Signups For A Moment And Building Some Security Features
Antifa Has Been Attacking For Over 24h
You Didn't Think They'd Just Let You Have Free Speech, Right? ;)[30]

They later changed it to:

Pausing Signups For A Moment And Building Some Security Features
The Far-Left Has Been Attacking For Over 24h
You Didn't Think They'd Just Let You Have Free Speech, Right? ;) Follow Updates On Twitter @Pew_Tube_[31]

In response, PewTube asserted that the censorship was merely a response to a coordinated attack against PewTube by the far-left:[32]

During PewTube’s first week of operations, while the site was still very new and security against viewbotting and mass registrations via bots was still very limited, posters on far-left internet forums began to circulate links to PewTube with the intention of disrupting and causing damage to the service.

After those users which were attacking PewTube through a multitude of angles had their account access restricted, a rumour began to be circulated by those on the far-left that PewTube had unilaterally began to delete content based on no other premise than the founder didn’t want the material on the site.

That’s an outright lie and it’s not difficult to prove as such, below I will list screenshots of the people on internet forums discussing, planning and ultimately executing different attacks on the platform.

As you can see, this was not a case of leftists just using the site in good faith, reaching a high level of popularity and then being banned for no reason other than ideology, it was a coordinated attack that tried to destroy the site.

Later, PewTube tweeted its full acceptance of a far-left channel:[33]

“”The far-left says they're not welcome on PewTube but here we are proudly hosting Boston Antifa! #NarrativeCollapse twitter.com/AntifaBostonUSA/status/930231047639519241

AntifaBostonUSA appears to be a fake antifa account: All of their tweets are absurd and all of their retweets are of other fake antifa accounts.

gollark: We could of course temporarily link this to the esolangs <#800373244162867234>, so no backs would be behindeded.
gollark: It is specific to ZIP. I just stuck an archive on the end due to ZIP weirdness.
gollark: I had to implement something like that that in the pythonous RSAPI due to tasks seemingly randomly stopping intermittently.
gollark: Well, technically you submit the forms over IPoAC (Internet Protocol over Apian Carriers).
gollark: What? No. We have an application process. A mgollark instance processes application forms.

References
If a link below does not work: Try the [a w] links to go to archive.is and web.archive.org respectively.
  1. Gab[a w]
  2. Gab[a w]
  3. http://money.cnn.com/2017/11/10/technology/culture/divided-we-code-alt-tech/index.html
  4. https://www.similarweb.com/website/pew.tube
  5. http://www.rank2traffic.com/pew.tube
  6. isitdownrightnow.com, 24 April 2019.
  7. gab.com/pewtube, 23 October 2020.
  8. Pew.Tube main page[a w]
  9. Pew.Tube Twitter page[a w]
  10. About Pew.Tube[a w]
  11. Twitter[a w]
  12. Gab[a w]
  13. https://pew.tube/media/popular
  14. https://pew.tube/user/pol/8VxcmGE
  15. https://pew.tube/user/59922cf2593f020010d73220/59922da8593f020010d73221
  16. https://pew.tube/user/warrenharper28/mlpHhwj
  17. https://pew.tube/user/Bob/yfRPmS7
  18. https://pew.tube/user/Go_Full_Breivik_1488/jF3Xugt
  19. https://pew.tube/user/LasVegasResearch/Ik6J1sg
  20. Terms of service[a w], Pew.Tube
  21. Gab[a w]
  22. Gab[a w]
  23. Gab[a w]
  24. Gab[a w]
  25. Gab[a w]
  26. Twitter[a w]
  27. http://archive.is/TqGWj
  28. https://www.reddit.com/r/socialism/comments/6x7xgl/ahahahaha_pewtube_a_censorshipfree_alternative_to/
  29. https://www.reddit.com/r/ChapoTrapHouse/comments/6x88kl/censorship_free_alternative_to_youtube_has/
  30. http://archive.is/1CPSl
  31. https://archive.is/TqGWj/7d94e22aca09a5c4b97cdab13f9d073b7446c6c2.jpg
  32. Regarding The Far-Left Attacks On PewTube by PewTube
  33. https://twitter.com/Pew_Tube_/status/930248704195551232?p=v
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