Following riots, alternative social apps and private messengers top the app stores
Alternative social media apps, including MeWe, CloutHub and other privacy-focused rivals to big tech, are topping the app stores following Trump’s ban from mainstream social platforms like Facebook and Twitter and the more recent removal of conservative social app Parler from both the App Store and Google Play. In the days since the Parler ban, “free speech”-favoring social networks are seeing notable numbers of new downloads at a quick pace, data shows.
Next-generation social network MeWe, founded in May 2012 as a beta, then launched in 2016, is one of those that’s seeing the largest bump in new installs.