Controversial right-wing personality Paul Joseph Watson has announced that he is joining StoryFire, a social media platform that he describes as a "combo" of Twitter and YouTube.
Watson, who gained popularity after working with America’s number one conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, claims that StoryFire founders "aren’t afraid of free speech" and reward content creators with the help of a "cryptocurrency feature":
"I have joined StoryFire, which is like a Twitter/YouTube combo and also has a cryptocurrency feature which allows creators to make revenue. Crucially, the founders aren't afraid of free speech."
Competing with the giant
StoryFire was co-founded by Jesse Ridgway and Brian Spitz back in 2017 as a story-telling platform.
Ridgway, a longtime YouTuber whose "McJuggerNuggets" channel has four million subscribers, grew dissatisfied with the streaming behemoth after some of his hit videos that were not deemed advertiser friendly were demonetized.
The revenue feature that Watson refers to is Blaze, which is not an actual cryptocurrency. It is a system of reward points that can be bought to help out creators or earned by actively watching their content.
Back in May, YouTube’s number one user PewDiePie inked a streaming deal with Tron’s decentralized DLive that offers blockchain-based rewards.
Of course, the audiences of such platforms—which usually appear as generic video hosting sites embellished with buzz words—remain a drop in the bucket compared to YouTube’s massive reach.
Right-wingers turn to Bitcoin
While StoryFire’s crypto twist is not really crypto, multiple other right-wingers have flocked to actual cryptocurrencies after being de-platformed by mainstream social media.
This June, philosopher and alt-right activist Stefan Molyneux got $100,000 worth of Bitcoin donations after his YouTube channel was banned.
