# COVID-Related Misinformation Migration to BitChute and Odysee
## 2 Related Work
### Misinformation on Low Content Moderation Platforms  
YouTube has received considerable criticism for potentially radicalizing individuals and promoting conspiracy videos [55]. To improve the quality of content on its platform, on January 2019, YouTube reduced recommendations to conspiratorial and alternative news content ([[https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/continuing-our-work-to-improve/--accessed](https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/continuing-our-work-to-improve/--accessed)]([https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/continuing-our-work-to-improve/--accessed](https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/continuing-our-work-to-improve/--accessed)) on 24 October 2022), but it allowed the videos to remain on the platform [56]. Therefore, exposure to anti-social content videos occurs on many platforms beyond YouTube (via shared links). There is evidence that reducing exposure to anti-social videos on YouTube potentially reduces sharing on other mainstream platforms, such as Twitter and Reddit [57]. In reaction to perceived risks of censorship in mainstream media and platforms, the so-called _alt-tech_ spaces emerged and have become increasingly popular, especially among users who are suspended on mainstream social networks for violating their terms of service. Most of them are low content-moderation platforms, producing and promoting anti-social content (i.e., disinformation, political propaganda, conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, and hate speech). For this reason, these alternative platforms have also received attention from researchers, practitioners, and policy makers [58]. Many of these platforms, including Gab, 4 chan, and Parler, are very popular among fringe communities, especially far-right groups, with hateful and extremist content [59; 60; 61; 62; 63]. According to [61], Gab is predominantly used for the dissemination and discussion of news and world events, it has a significant rate of hate speech, much higher than Twitter, and it attracts alt-right users, conspiracy theorists, and other trolls. A study analyzing comments, users, and websites discussed in Dissenter, a browser extension created by Gab, identified a high degree of comment toxicity among a core group of users [64]. 4 chan has also received considerable attention, mainly because of its politically incorrect /pol/ board, offensive culture, openly antisemitic rhetoric, users' associations with the alt-right, and meme virality on social media [65; 66; 67; 68]. In addition, [PERSON] et al. [69] studied the spread of misinformation in Parler as an \"alternative\" place for free speech from a data science and UX design perspective. Another study on a Parler dataset [70] found that discussion on the platform mainly focused on conservative topics, President [PERSON], as well as conspiracy theories (e.g., QAnon). Another glaring example, as a result of the mainstream social media self-regulation strategy, is the launch of Gettr in 2021. Gettr is an alternative social network platform launched by former US President [PERSON]'s team, which hosts pro-Trump content mixed with conspiracy theories and anti-left stances [71]; however, without significant organic engagement and activity and with a lower level of toxicity, compared to other fringe social networks [72]. Unlike the attention that most of the aforementioned platforms have received from the scientific community, BitChute and Odysee remain relatively neglected by the research community. Concerning the BitChute platform, authors in [4] claimed that a handful of channels in the platform receive high engagement, and almost all of those channels contain conspiracies or hate speech. They found that BitChute has a higher rate of hate speech than Gab but less than 4 chan, and also, some BitChute content producers have been banned from other platforms. Additionally, a BitChute dataset, called The MeLa BitChute Dataset [5], is publicly available, providing a basis for investigating the content on the platform.