According to new study, Gettr, the social media platform that bills itself as a method to get away from Big Tech, really includes trackers and features from firms like Facebook and Google. The disclosure tarnishes Gettr’s presentation as a competitor to Facebook, but it also demonstrates how omnipresent Big Tech is in its various manifestations. Various Silicon Valley trackers are still present in the app.
The report, published by Talk Liberation Investigates, a website affiliated to the upcoming social networking app Panquakes, reads, “The gettr.com online app loads tracking cookies and pixels from Google and Facebook that produce unique identifiers for individual users.” According to the research, Gettr also employs smaller analytic tools like AppsFlyer and Countly. The technical examination was carried out by Sean O’Brien, the CSO of Panquake.com and the founder of Yale Law School’s Privacy Lab. Gettr does state that company uses Google Analytics in its privacy policy, as noted in the study.
“We may utilize Third-Party Services like Google Analytics to assist us in analyzing our performance and providing Services and advertising to you,” it says. Tracking cookies and pixels are ubiquitous on the internet, and they’re mostly employed by tech corporations to track user behavior across websites so they can better target adverts.
Gettr was created in July of last year as a clear competitor to social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Its critique of those platforms focuses on the alleged prejudice it sees them displaying by removing some accounts, particularly Republican or right-leaning accounts.
Gettr CEO Jason Miller recently stated, “This is about world shaping for them.” Miller previously served as a senior adviser to Trump’s re-election campaign in 2020. “This report gets a number of things incorrect,” Miller said in a statement to Motherboard. “A more responsible fact-check on the front-end would have helped the author avoid any unnecessary confusion.” GETTR does not sell user data, unlike Big Tech social media platforms, and we are committed to safeguarding users from Big Tech’s overreach and political prejudice. Everyone is treated equally on GETTR, regardless of ideology. We’re a secure haven for free expression, critical thinking, and, most importantly, user data. That distinguishes us from our Silicon Valley counterparts.”
“These so-called trackers are solely used for targeted Facebook and Google advertisements that we run to promote GETTR, as well as as part of our remarketing efforts to encourage visitors to return to our platform,” says the company. No one else has access to this information. Data analytics, on the other hand, are purely used for internal quality assurance and improving the client experience,” he noted.
Gettr was backed by a spate of high-profile personalities, many of whom had been banned from other platforms or had significant issues with the content moderation judgments made by those sites. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who was banned from Twitter earlier this month, and Sean Hannity are among them. Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson, two media titans, have recently joined Gettr.
“Just in case the nonsense on Twitter becomes any stupid, I’m here now.” Last week, Rogan wrote on Gettr, “Rejoice!”
Hackers were able to extract 90,000 Gettr user email addresses and other data from the service shortly after it began.
