BitChute

About

BitChute is a video hosting and sharing website created in January 2017. Mostly viewed as a YouTube alternative, BitChute has fewer censorship restrictions than YouTube. Many have criticized BitChute's lax censorship policies for allowing videos that espouse conspiracy theories, white supremacy and nationalism, sexism and other forms of content that have allowed for and promoted the radicalization of viewers, similar to the criticism of Gab.

History

BitChute was founded by Ray Vahey, a British software developer, who founded the site after "seeing the increased levels of censorship by the large social media platforms in the last couple of years -- bannings, demonetization, and tweaking algorithms to send certain content into obscurity and, wanting to do something about it."^[1]

On January 3rd, 2017, BitChute published the site's first video entitled "THIS IS THE FIRST VIDEO ON #BITCHUTE !" The post has received more than 2,100 views and more than 50 upvotes in less than two years.

Stripe Payments Terminated

On June 10th, 2018, Stripe, the online payment processing service, terminated its relationship with BitChute, citing "a restriction imposed upon us directly from our financial partners, who use have an archaic and frankly antiquated view of non-traditional businesses."^[2]

Features

Much like YouTube, BitChute has a search bar, allowing users to search for specific topics or videos. Additionally, the videos can be found through categories (shown below, left).

Payments and donations can be also be made on the site through Patreon and PayPal. The site allows you to sign up for three different pricing tiers: Bronze, Silver and Gold (shown below, right).

Highlights

Criticisms

BitChute has been criticized for allowing users that have since been banned from YouTube, Facebook and other social networks for promoting baseless conspiracy theories, fake news and inflammatory material that could incite violent behavior. For example, InfoWars remains one of BitChute's most popular channels despite being de-platformed on various other social networks. Popular channels and topics on the site include Holocaust denial, white supremacy and conspiracy theories, which operate alongside seemingly benign topics, such as make-up tutorials and do-it-yourself projects.

In 2018, The Daily Dot ^[3] wrote of BitChute:

But if we look back at the Pittsburgh shooting, or the Florida mail bomber, or even the 2017 white nationalist march in Charlottesville, Virginia, that ended in a woman’s death, it’s clear freedom of expression often means freedom to espouse racist, hateful views. On sites like BitChute, Twitter, YouTube, and Gab, that often happens without consequence. BitChute wants to be a rogue ship in the video ecosystem that rails against censorship, but when violent, extremist, white supremacist content is still flourishing and reaching an audience on YouTube, is it really an alternative? And as its user base grows, will BitChute just end up facing the same issues YouTube is still figuring out?

Search Interest

External References