After all of the major social media platforms banned QAnon-related content, believers have transformed a TikTok clone called Clapper into a new echo chamber. Will Clapper allow its app to be used in this way?
QAnon Finds a New Home in Clapper
QAnon believers have taken to "free speech video platform" Clapper to spread the conspiracy theory: that former US president Donald Trump is waging a secret war against a faction of criminals in government, business, and the media.
Clapper has been downloaded over 500,000 times in the past two weeks, presumably because Twitter deleted 70,000 QAnon accounts earlier this month.
But unfortunately, QAnon isn't a new conspiracy. As long ago as October 2020, Facebook took down all QAnon groups, pages, and accounts.
Clapper is a TikTok clone that lets users post short videos. The user interface looks similar to that of TikTok, except it's orange.
Upon downloading Clapper, you'll notice that the feed for popular videos is also labelled For You. Instead of seeing your favorite TikTok creators, however, you'll likely be greeted with the same crowd of people that have popularized the platform's top hashtags, such as #uspresident and #trump2020.
Will Clapper Ban QAnon Too?
The quandary Clapper faces now is whether to ban QAnon supporters and QAnon-related content. Clapper CEO and co-founder Edison Chen told The Verge:
There are lots of conservatives and political people. I think they feel less censorship here and they’re kicked out from the other social media platforms.
Some of the users on our app are talking a lot about QAnon, and we are still working on it to further investigate if they truly are against our community guidelines.
On January 10, Clapper released a statement regarding the US Capitol raid on Twitter.
After Tweeting a video statement with the same sort of sentiment the following day, Clapper has not otherwise addressed how it will be moderating content on the app moving forward.
The Clapper Twitter account has since been highlighting videos entirely unrelated to politics. Perhaps in an attempt to prove that some Clapper users are genuinely interested in sharing enjoyable content, instead of pushing extremist views onto other people.
Clapper Allows QAnon Supporters to Post... For Now
For the time being, Clapper is letting "conservatives and political people" populate the app, for good or for bad. And there's supposedly no such thing as bad publicity.