President Trump is planning to build his own rival digital media TV channel to take on Fox News, according to US reports.
The new service would aim to compete directly with Fox’s $5.99 per month (£4.49) streaming service, according to a report from Axios on Thursday.
President Trump and his supporters are furious over Fox’s relatively balanced coverage of the US election, including its decision to call a win for his rival Joe Biden in Arizona, a key swing state. Defeat in Arizona was a powerful blow for Mr Trump’s reelection hopes.
The new service is just the latest example of how Mr Trump’s defeat at the polls is reshaping the US social media industry.
The decisions by Facebook and Twitter to more aggressively moderate lies on the platforms have prompted many of Trump’s supporters to flock to a slew of new, emerging social media platforms which are more tolerant of them.
Alternatives Parler, Gab, and MeWe have all enjoyed a surge in downloads since the election. They act as safe havens for Trump supporters who have felt aggrieved as both Twitter and Facebook labelled multiple posts from the US president as “disputed”.
Conservative social media app Parler was downloaded nearly 1 million times in the five days after the election, according to data from SensorTower. The wave of downloads catapulted it to the top of the iOS App Store and Google Play Store free download rankings.
Parler has proven to be a popular base for those leading the “Stop the Steal” campaign. It also hosts high-profile names that have been banned from mainstream social media networks in the UK including Katie Hopkins and Tommy Robinson.
Gab, another network that touts its dedication to free speech, claimed to have had its “best-performing week” in its four-year history. The site, which is banned from Apple and Google’s app stores, said that it was visited 7.7 million times in October, a 99pc increase from September.
Another app emerging as a safe space for Trump supporters is MeWe. Similar to Facebook, MeWe makes money through ads but also by allowing users to pay for additional features like dark mode. SensorTower says it was downloaded 218,000 times in the week after the election.
It remains to be seen if use of these alternative social media sites will hold up should President Trump’s cries of corruption in the voting system fail to hold water in the long term.
Mr Trump used his Twitter account as a mouthpiece during his presidency and indeed it became a crucial tool during his 2016 election campaign.
His unsubstantiated cries of a fraudulent election over the past week have also led to a surge in his followers departing traditional social media sites.
Facebook and Twitter have been battered by both sides of the political spectrum in the US over its moderation for some time.
Conservatives believe that the tech giants’ largely liberal workforces have resulted in heavy handed censorship of Republican views. Meanwhile, many Democrats have insisted the sites have not done enough to clamp down on extreme Right-wing views.
Republican attitudes were summed up by senator Ted Cruz, who asked Jack Dorsey, the Twitter CEO: “Who the hell elected you and put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report?”
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