The Network of Alternative Social Media Researchers

Researcher Interview: Ashwin Nagappa

Robert W. Gehl, 27 Apr 2025

In this ASM researcher interview, Robert W. Gehl talks to Ashwin Ngappa. Ashwin is a Post Doctoral Research Fellow at the QUT node of ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (ADM+S) and the QUT Digital Media Research Centre (DMRC). Recently, he has published work in Social Media + Society analyzing the far-right site Gab and a blockchain-based system called D-Tube. In this interview, we talk about a new project Ashwin is pursuing, focusing on decentralized social media, as well as the problems of cryptocurrencies in alternative social media.

You’ve got some exciting news, I understand. Tell us about it!

Yes, I do have some exciting news to share!

My project ‘Trust in the Fediverse: Leveraging Community Protocols and Automation to Combat Online Harms’ has been selected for the AXA Research Fund Postdoctoral fellowship. The project will investigate the strengths and weaknesses of fediverse or decentralized platforms in promoting prosocial practices and governance (therefore reducing online harm and misinformation).

I have always been interested in emerging technologies and the evolving digital media landscape. When the AXA Fellowship opened for applications last year, it felt like the right moment to develop a project focused on non-mainstream platforms — especially those designed to promote pro-social values. With the support of this fellowship, I now have the opportunity to examine transformations in alternative social media (ASM) over time, with a particular focus on the current momentum around fediverse platforms.

The project involves a close analysis of policy and governance documents across a wide range of platforms — both major and minor — and conversations with platform developers, community participants, and scholars working in this space. One of the key outcomes will be a concept map for policy discussions around trust and safety, identifying what works and what doesn’t in decentralized or alternative environments. I see this work as a chance to generate nuanced insights that can inform the development of future platform frameworks — ones that promote pro-social values and support sustainable systems not driven by commercial or advertising imperatives.

The project begins in May 2025 and will run for approximately two years. I’ll be sharing regular updates with this group as the work progresses, and I’d really value the support and insights of this amazing community of scholars.

Your doctoral work was on DTube. What’s DTube, and what prompted you to study it?

To answer this question, I’d like to briefly outline my career journey. I completed my undergraduate degree in Computer Science Engineering and then worked for an IT company for five years, where I analyzed large datasets, fixed code, and supported technical operations. Over time, however, I found that the work no longer excited me. Seeking a more creative and critical direction, I pursued a Master’s in Media and Cultural Studies, where I was introduced to critical thinking and research methodologies. This is where I was exploring the relationship between digital technology, society, and the self.

After my master’s, I briefly worked in educational technology research, contributing to platform development projects. This was a period when major platforms were relatively stable, and alternative platforms were not widely discussed — yet there was a growing awareness of increasing polarization and the rise of right-wing governments. Important questions were emerging about the relationship between big data and these social shifts.

I remained curious about how technologies originate and evolve over time. Around 2017, Bitcoin had already gained significant momentum, and cryptocurrencies were beginning to find their way into everyday life. Observing the integration of cryptocurrency models into emerging social media platforms, I began following a few projects that were developing from the ground up. Since 2017, I have closely observed video streaming platforms like DTube and LBRY, both of which made utopian promises of user-governed, advertising-free video sharing backed by cryptocurrency. These platforms introduced a radically new model of social media, decentralized both in infrastructure and governance.

As I developed my proposal for doctoral research, it became clear that I wanted to study one of these platforms in depth. I was accepted into the PhD program at QUT under the supervision of Prof. Jean Burgess, who had just co-authored Twitter: A Biography with Prof. Nancy Baym. Inspired by their platform biography approach, I adopted it as the methodological foundation for my research.

Studying the lifespan of DTube — an obscure but revealing platform — offered important insights into how individuals and communities imagine socio-technical systems, propose governance models, and respond to challenges. Although blockchain-based platforms have generally struggled to achieve large-scale adoption (with a few exceptions among far-right communities), DTube’s story demonstrates that there is no straightforward solution for financial sustainability in social communication platforms. I was particularly influenced by scholars like Lana Swartz, Rachel O’Dwyer, and Koray Caliskan, who have explored the intersections of data, money, and communication. DTube’s trajectory suggests that when monetary systems are deeply integrated into social platforms, they can render communication increasingly transactional — more so than what we currently experience on major platforms.

Although my initial PhD interests were different, working on DTube gradually shifted my focus towards internet and web history. My research now reflects not only on a platform’s life cycle but also captures a historical moment when cryptocurrency promised radical change — while also revealing how those promises were gradually co-opted and reshaped.

Given your doctoral work, do you see any role for cryptocurrencies in alternative social media?

I’m not sure that cryptocurrencies are a good fit for alternative social media (ASM). At the end of the day, cryptocurrency is a form of money, and like all financial systems created by humans, it carries inherent biases and structural inequalities. While blockchain technologies and cryptocurrencies were initially imagined as a way to resist the dominance of big banks and corporations, the reality is that the system itself is flawed. Access to technology and infrastructure still determines who holds power, and distribution remains uneven.

Looking at current examples, Twitter (now X) is owned by Elon Musk, who has major investments in various cryptocurrencies. Similarly, Trump owns Truth Social and is linked to the development of TrumpCoin. If figures like these integrate cryptocurrencies deeply into their platforms, it’s unlikely that participation will remain open or equitable — those who are already socially and financially marginalized could find themselves further excluded.

The financial sustainability of ASM remains an open and important question. Cryptocurrencies may not offer the solution we need. There is still important work to be done to imagine and build sustainable financial models — perhaps something closer to Wikipedia’s approach — that are not driven purely by profit motives, and that can genuinely support broader, more inclusive participation.

You’ve also published work on Gab, the alt-right social media site. What did you find when you studied that site?

The research on Gab was a side project I pursued during my PhD, in collaboration with my colleague Dr. Ehsan Dehghan. We carried out this work in 2021, at a time when COVID-19 was a critical global issue, travel restrictions were still in place, and debates around vaccination were intensifying. This project brought together my interest in alternative and minor platforms and Ehsan’s focus on online radicalization. While Gab openly positioned itself with conservative ideologies, we were particularly interested in examining the processes of radicalization taking shape on the platform.

We collected data on vaccination discourse on Gab from 2018 to 2021, aiming to understand how Gab users perceived vaccination and how radicalization around the topic unfolded over time. In our paper, we found that antagonistic and conspiratorial thinking was already present in vaccination discussions on Gab even before the pandemic. However, during the pandemic, these conversations became increasingly politicized, expanding well beyond medical discourse into broader debates about organizational and institutional politics.

We also observed that Gab was just one node within a larger ecosystem of platforms that these communities used both to stay informed and, in some cases, to propagate particular ideologies, including hate and misinformation. We define this as “alt-platformization”, the systemic and systematic process of creating a self-sufficient, viable alternative to the platformized web, entailing the necessary infrastructure, production, circulation, consumption, and reproduction of discourses. We have developed this discussion further to look at other platforms as well. The book chapter is due to be published in 2026.

I’ve spent a great deal of time examining Gab. It’s not easy to look — at there are literal Nazis there. What sort of methodological tools do you recommend to folks who want to study such sites?

I completely agree. Platforms like Gab are incredibly challenging to study, given the nature of discussions that take place there. They starkly reveal the lack of moderation and the platform’s affordances that enable the spread of false and hateful content.

It’s not easy to apply qualitative approaches to observe or manually dive deep into these discussions. Doing so can pose serious risks to the mental health of researchers and users, especially those who are not familiar with encountering such content. This is where AI tools and computational methods become particularly valuable (one of the best ways to put AI to use, I believe). In our study of Gab, we used automated scraping techniques and tools like Tableau and Gephi for analysis. We didn’t engage directly with full posts; instead, we worked with metadata elements such as hashtags and user participation patterns.

Although I’m not currently researching alternative platforms, I’m aware of colleagues in Australia and internationally who are using AI-based approaches to automate content coding from alt-right platforms and to generate topic models that help map broader discourses. I also found it helpful to share parts of my analysis with trusted colleagues — as a sounding board and a way to recognize when to pause, especially when the material became confusing or caused discomfort.

Where do you think ASM research should go from here?

We are at a fascinating moment in history, where disruptive technologies are transforming the very foundations of communication. At the same time, we are witnessing the rise of hate speech and misinformation, set against a backdrop of economic instability and geopolitical tensions.

ASM research has been critical in shedding light on areas that often receive less attention compared to major platforms and mainstream issues. Moving forward, ASM research can play an important role in developing frameworks for interdisciplinary work — work that focuses on technologies, communities, and practices at the margins.

At the same time, it is worth taking up the challenge of defining what we mean by “alternative.” Is it an alternative to corporate systems? To hegemonic socio-political conditions? Or something else entirely?

I want to reiterate your important point about moving slowly and building bridges. There is much to learn from the peripheries, where more meaningful and sustainable models of prosocial communication are often being developed.