alt-tech

noun

Social media and other Internet platforms with a large alt-right userbase.

Meanings

nounalt-tech (uncountable)
  1. InternetuncountableSocial media and other Internet platforms with a large alt-right userbase.

    This is a book on all things alt-tech and the like. People who are shadow-banned and removed from the internet can be found with all things alt-tech. Includes a multiple page list of content creators, works as a guide and reference.

    2020, Scott Barry, Alt Tech, Lulu.com, →ISBN
    2 more examples

    Parler was sometimes ridiculed as the “boomer 4chan,” a messy-but-accessible connecting piece between mainstream right-wing Facebook and the darker fringes of the internet. But in a short time, it really did become the core of the “alt-tech” ecosystem, and its downfall has enraged many on the right who were already in an uproar about limitations on online speech.

    2021 January 18, Kaitlyn Tiffany, “Parler’s Rise Was Also Its Downfall”, in The Atlantic

    There are three types of alt-tech platforms: 1) platforms created for extremists and used by extremists such as WASP Love and Hatreon; 2) ultra-libertarian platforms, platforms created by libertarians or commercially driven developers, which tend to operate in the name of free speech and tolerate extremist content such as Gab, Minds and 8chan; and 3) hijacked platforms, platforms created for entirely different purposes that have been hijacked by extremists but proactively work with the authorities to ban these from using their services such as Discord, Telegram and JustPasteIt.

    2021, Julia Ebner, Going Dark: The Secret Social Lives of Extremists, Bloomsbury, →ISBN, page 145

Origin

Either from alt- + tech, a blend of alt-right + tech, or a blend of alt-right + Big Tech.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

alt-tech. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/alt-tech

MLA

“alt-tech.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/alt-tech. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “alt-tech,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/alt-tech.

Source: alt-tech on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.