Right-wing Twitter alternative GETTR is in turmoil — and has fired 'over a dozen staffers' in just one year

On Thursday, the conservative site Washington Examinerreported turmoil at GETTR, the right-wing alternative to Twitter founded last year by a controversial alum of former President Donald Trump's campaign.

"Social media upstart GETTR fired over a dozen staff members late last year, including two key executives and its entire IT and cybersecurity teams, amid rapid growth and what former employees said were funding problems," reported Nihal Krishan. "The layoffs came even as interest in the company, founded by Jason Miller, a spokesman for former President Donald Trump, exploded. But three people who were canned say that behind the scenes, GETTR is struggling with more than just growing pains, warning that the recent round of layoffs may have jeopardized the platform’s security."

One of these employees reportedly told the Examiner, "In all honesty, in all my years of doing cybersecurity, I’ve never seen a company this poorly run from business operations all the way to IT. It looks like a high school operation."

GETTR has been struggling to take off since its inception, a state of affairs that was not made any better after Trump declined to create an account on the platform.

In recent years, several right-wing social media platforms have popped up, catering to debunked conspiracy theories that "Big Tech" companies are overtly trying to silence conservative content, but none have been very successful.

Gab, one of the first such networks, has become infamous as a haven for white nationalists and neo-Nazis, with one of its users perpetrating the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting. Another network, Parler, attracted a wide conservative userbase but was badly hurt after its users helped carry out the January 6 attack, and several app platforms temporarily banned the site until it improved violent content moderation. And Trump himself is moving forward with his own project known as Truth Social, using a so-called "blank check" company that has come under federal investigation for its fundraising practices.