Challenging ‘Leftist Big Tech’ through Right-wing Alternative Social Media: Parler and Albicla in Polish Conservative Media Discourse

Abstract

Numerous “free speech” platforms have been launched in recent years as a form of protest against content moderation practices on mainstream social media. This paper asks the question of how the issue of these emerging right-wing alternative social media is discursively constructed, taking as an example the Polish conservative media debate over the American service Parler and its Polish equivalent Albicla. Taking a critically discursive approach, the article provides an analysis of the discursive strategies applied, and critically embeds the findings in the broader socio-political context, as well as in the alternative media theory. The results show that, drawing on the wartime rhetoric and numerous references to Poland’s non-democratic past, the discourse creates a populist narrative of identity conflict between two opposing groups: “them” – hostile “leftists” seeking to impose a radical, progressive social order and “us” – oppressed protectors of freedom and common-sense values. The study additionally indicates that the issue is also utilised for the purposes of rivalry between domestic right-wing factions. Furthermore, the data contains frequent reference to issues of political economy and thus, intriguingly, overlaps to some extent with left-wing media critique, in that both agree on the necessity of contesting a monopolised media market and developing alternative means of communication.