Laid off Gettr staff blame Chinese investor for platform trampling

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Recently fired employees of Gettr – the so-called “free speech” site launched in July 2021 by Jason Miller, a former adviser to former Republican President Donald Trump – accuse the platform’s main Chinese investor, Guo Wengui, of be responsible for Gettr’s recent instability.

Guo and his ‘hand-picked’ chief technology officer, Joe Wang, have reportedly repeatedly disagreed with Gettr’s information technology and cybersecurity teams over the best ways to maintain and improve protocols. site security, former employees told the Washington Examiner.

The clashes occurred amid monetary issues, “major restructuring” and resulting layoffs among Gettr’s security and online infrastructure teams, the publication added. At least 13 members of these teams, including the Chief Information Officer and Chief Information Security Officer, have been removed from the platform since December 28, 2021.

Both officers were fired just three months after they were first hired, according to former executives. Other team members were not replaced, “leaving the company vulnerable to online threats,” the reviewer reported.

In response to the publication’s report, Miller said in a statement, “Our position remains strong, with over 4.5 million users, and this month we will be releasing Vision, our short video format that will rival TikTok and Instagram reels.”

Newsweek has contacted Gettr for comment.

Recently fired employees of the “free speech” social media platform Gettr blamed Guo Wengui, a key Chinese investor, for the site’s problems. In this photo, Guo holds a press conference on November 20, 2018 in New York City. Guo was introduced by former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon. Don Emmert/AFP/Getty

A vocal critic of the Chinese government, Guo fled to the United States in 2014 after being accused by Chinese authorities of corruption, fraud and money laundering. He denied the allegations.

Additionally, Guo is a colleague of Steve Bannon, who temporarily served as a White House adviser under former President Donald Trump and was convicted and subsequently pardoned of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and money laundering. When Bannon was arrested on the charges, he was aboard Guo’s yacht, according to HuffPost.

Guo is currently under investigation by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and the FBI over a $300 million investment offer for a planned media company called GTV Media Group. The company promised it would be the “single uncensored and independent bridge between China and the Western world”, according to its fundraising materials.

Miller launched Gettr on July 4, 2021, six months after Twitter suspended Trump for inciting the January 6, 2021 riots at the US Capitol.

Shortly after launch, hackers accessed and released information about around 90,000 Gettr users, including usernames and email addresses. The platform also lacked protocols to prevent users from posting sensitive and illegal content, such as child pornography, according to an August study by the Stanford Internet Observatory.

Gettr’s website proclaims that it is “founded on the principles of freedom of expression, independent thought, and rejection of political censorship and ‘cancel culture'”.

Despite his freedom claims, Gettr has had his own censorship issues. The site banned white nationalist figure Nick Fuentes from its platform and also blocked the word “groyper”, a term Fuentes supporters call themselves.

While Gettr and other so-called “free speech” sites like Parler have attempted to woo the right, they are widely seen as “echo chambers” for right-wing ideology. They don’t have the political and ideological diversity of Twitter, podcaster and conservative writer Matt Walsh once noted.

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