Days after signing up for pro-Donald Trump social media alternative Gettr, Joe Rogan has publicly condemned the platform.
The podcaster created an account on Gettr apparently in response to Twitter's censoring of anti-vax doctor Robert Malone and QAnon-associated US politician Marjorie Taylor Greene for posting COVID-19 misinformation.
However on the new episode of podcast The Tim Dillon Show, Rogan criticised Gettr for "f**ckery", saying "they take all my Twitter followers... and then they port those over".
"The news story is their f**king amount of people that signed up increased by 1150 percent or something [due to my joining]," Rogan told Dillon.
Dillon pointed out that Rogan had nine million followers on Gettr, but Rogan rubbished that idea.
"Yeah, it's not real, though. Gettr doesn't even have nine million people. This is where the f**kery is," Rogan replied.
Reports suggest Gettr has around five million active accounts, with around 400,000 daily users.
The UFC announcer then suggested he wanted to close his Gettr account but doesn't "know how to get off".
"I don't think I can," he said.
In a statement to website The Daily Beast, Gettr founder Jason Miller said the company had been in contact with Rogan's team and hoped they had addressed any concerns he may have had.
He also confirmed the platform counts Twitter followers as its own because it will "soon be incorporating cross-platform posting".
Gettr was "founded on the principles of free speech, independent thought and rejecting political censorship and cancel culture" by the former Trump spokesperson in July 2021.
It was quickly embroiled in controversy after anime pornography and pro-Islamic State content were posted due to lack of moderation.
It was then criticised for the "proliferation of gratuitous adult content, spam and, unfortunately, child exploitation imagery (CEI)" by a study from Stanford Internet Observatory's Cyber Policy Centre.
Last week Rogan tweeted to his nearly nine million Twitter followers to "rejoice" that he has joined Gettr, encouraging them to follow him there "just in case shit over at Twitter gets even dumber".
That prompted a massive increase in users for Gettr, with 171,000 signing up on the day Rogan made his announcement and over 500,000 in the days following.
According to a recent interview with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, Miller made a substantial offer to former US President and reality television host Trump to get him on Gettr, but he apparently turned it down in favour of a larger offer.
TRUTH Social, Trump's own new social media platform, is scheduled to launch on February 21, according to its Apple App Store listing - Presidents' Day in the United States.
