In today’s digital landscape, millions of people engage with politically charged content across platforms like Infowars, X (formerly Twitter), Gettr, and Rumble. While these platforms promote themselves as champions of free speech, they may also be collecting and selling vast amounts of user data to advertisers and even governments, enabling widespread surveillance and control.
1. Estimating the Audience and Participants
To understand the scope of this issue, we need to estimate how large the pool of people being analyzed is by focusing on the audience sizes and active participants on key platforms.
A. Alex Jones’ Reach (Infowars)
• Pre-ban numbers: Before being de-platformed from major social media sites like YouTube and Facebook in 2018, Alex Jones’ Infowars reached up to 2 million viewers daily.
• Current reach on alternative platforms:
• Rumble: Millions of monthly users engage with his content here.
• Infowars website: Rough estimates suggest Infowars still sees hundreds of thousands of daily visits.
• Social platforms (Telegram, Gab, etc.): Jones’ reach on these platforms remains strong, likely in the hundreds of thousands to low millions across all platforms.
Conclusion: Despite being de-platformed, Alex Jones could still be reaching millions of people through alternative channels and direct website traffic.
B. Platform Numbers: X (Spaces), Gettr, and Rumble
X (formerly Twitter)
• Monthly active users: After Elon Musk’s acquisition, X reportedly had 450 million monthly active users.
• Spaces (live interaction): Popular Spaces related to political discourse often have thousands to tens of thousands of listeners.
• Estimate: Out of X’s total user base, perhaps 1-2% engage with politically charged Spaces regularly, equating to around 4-9 million active participants.
Gettr
• User base: Gettr has attracted around 8-10 million users since its launch.
• Engagement: Participation in politically charged posts and live discussions could account for hundreds of thousands to a couple million active participants regularly engaging with these topics.
Rumble
• Monthly visits: Rumble reports around 100-150 million monthly visits.
• Political content engagement: A significant portion of these visitors engage with alternative media and political content. Conservative estimates suggest 5-10 million actively follow figures like Jones or similar voices.
Total Audience Estimate for Analysis
• Millions of people are engaging across platforms like Infowars, X, Gettr, and Rumble.
• Focusing on participants engaging with politically charged content and figures like Alex Jones, the total could be around 10-20 million people regularly consuming and engaging with this type of content—individuals who are likely being tracked and analyzed.
2. How This Data Is Being Collected
Platforms like X, Gettr, Rumble, and Infowars collect and potentially sell vast amounts of user data, enabling tracking and analysis by advertisers, data brokers, and even governments.
A. Data Collection Methods
• IP addresses: Platforms collect IP addresses, which can be used to track the geographic location of users.
• Social media behavior: Posts, likes, shares, and retweets provide platforms with behavioral profiles that track user interests and online activity.
• Purchase data (Infowars): Users who buy products on Infowars may unknowingly provide personal data that is sold unless they opt out of sharing information.
• Facial recognition and device tracking: Some platforms use AI-driven facial recognition and device tracking to match users across devices and accounts, deepening the level of data collection.
B. Data Selling and Sharing
• X and other platforms: As part of their business models, platforms generate revenue by selling user data to third parties, which can include advertisers, data brokers, and even government agencies.
• Infowars opt-out clause: Infowars gives users the option to decline data sales, which suggests it is in the business of selling data by default. Users who don’t actively opt out could have their information sold to various buyers, including government entities.
C. Government Involvement in Data Buying
• Government purchasing of data: U.S. agencies such as the NSA and FBI have been known to buy bulk data from private data brokers. These data brokers acquire information from platforms like X, Gettr, and Rumble.
• Analyzing the data: With AI, governments can quickly analyze data from millions of users to identify patterns of dissent, influence networks, and potential threats.
3. What the Government Is Doing with the Data
Once collected, governments use this data in several ways to monitor, control, and influence politically engaged individuals.
A. Monitoring and Categorizing
• Profile creation: Governments can create detailed profiles of individuals who engage with politically controversial content, tracking their behavior, affiliations, and online networks.
• Surveillance: By tracking IP addresses, social media interactions, and call-in data, the government can monitor who is interacting with controversial figures and what topics are gaining traction.
B. Control and Suppression
• Targeting for discrediting: Once key influencers or individuals are identified, governments can work to discredit them, neutralizing their influence by targeting their platforms or using media to paint them as dangerous or untrustworthy.
• Neutralizing through censorship: Governments can pressure tech companies or manipulate platform algorithms to limit the spread of certain information or silence individuals through soft censorship.
C. Influence and Manipulation
• Predictive behavior: Using AI, governments can predict how individuals or groups may react to certain policies or events. This allows for preemptive control through propaganda, fear tactics, or misinformation campaigns designed to manipulate public opinion or prevent organized dissent.
4. Scale of People Being Analyzed
Given that millions of people regularly engage with controversial figures and platforms, the total number of individuals being monitored or analyzed could be in the tens of millions across the U.S. and globally. Platforms like X, Rumble, and Gettr, which promote free speech, are feeding massive amounts of data to both advertisers and potentially government agencies.
5. Estimating the Revenue from Data Sales
Platforms like X, Gettr, and Rumble likely generate tens of millions of dollars annually from selling user data. Here’s how:
• Price per user data: Data brokers can sell user data for anywhere from $0.50 to $2.00 per user, depending on the depth and quality of the data.
• Potential earnings: If platforms sell data on 50 million politically engaged users, that could generate up to $50-100 million annually in data sales.
This flow of money shows just how lucrative the business of data collection has become, with platforms profiting off their users’ information while also fueling government surveillance.
Conclusion: The Control of Dissent Through Data
Millions of people who follow or interact with politically controversial figures like Alex Jones, or who use platforms like X and Rumble, are likely being tracked and analyzed. Their data is collected through social media behavior, purchases, IP addresses, and even facial recognition technology. This data is then sold to third parties, including government entities, allowing them to build detailed profiles, predict behavior, and control or suppress movements they view as a threat.
While these platforms present themselves as free speech havens, the reality is that they are deeply entrenched in the surveillance economy, profiting from user data and enabling widespread monitoring. Tools like Groc, an AI on X, could very well be part of the government’s arsenal for controlling or surveilling these voices, further expanding their ability to track dissent in the digital age.
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