Member-only story
Parler, Newsmax, and OANN App Downloads Tumble After November Spike
But many of the apps report consistent gains in engagement
Following the November election, millions of Trump supporters claimed to have jumped ship for “free speech” platforms after Facebook removed several large conservative groups. These alternative apps—Parler, MeWe, Rumble, and those of far-right media outlets Newsmax and One America News Network (OANN)—reported massive spikes in user growth throughout November. Now that momentum has stalled, with, for example, almost nine times fewer daily Newsmax app downloads in December than in November.
Data from analytics company Apptopia suggests that the surge was temporary, and each platform has witnessed a precipitous drop in app downloads since the middle of November. The trend speaks to the challenges of fringe communities to establish their own ecosystems online as they are increasingly pushed out of more moderated mainstream platforms. It also puts into question the viability of platforms like Parler, which proudly bills itself as the “premier free speech social network.” According to a recent OneZero story, some of Parler’s new users seem disenchanted with the platform.
Much of the migration toward these platforms was seemingly sparked by Facebook removing a 300,000-person “Stop the Steal” group on November 5. Within a week, both Parler, a Twitter clone, and MeWe, which resembles Facebook, had rocketed to the top of app stores. Parler claimed its user base doubled to more than 10 million members in that time, and the app saw nearly 1 million downloads between November 3 and November 8, Fast Company reported.
According to a recent CNN Business report, which also drew data from Apptopia, Parler was downloaded 16,000 times on October 25. After soaring to 340,000 downloads by mid-November, by the second week of December Parler downloads had fallen to barely more than double pre-election figures, or 39,800 downloads.
MeWe witnessed an almost identical trajectory, jumping from 12,000 downloads pre-election to 207,000 by mid-November and back down to 30,000 downloads come mid-December.
While downloads crested, Apptopia’s numbers suggest that people have increasingly engaged with both apps over the…
