The social network known as Gab is back online. Its previous host—GoDaddy—withdrew support and hosting because of accusations that Gab was a haven for alt-right users. The Pittsburgh synagogue shooter was a member.
Rob Monster, the founder and CEO of Gab’s new host Epik, wrote a blog post defending his firm’s decision. He acknowledged that Gab had a duty to “monitor and lightly curate, keeping content within the bounds of the law”.
However, he also said he felt that Gab’s founder Andrew Torba was “doing something that looks useful” and described Gab’s removal from the internet as “digital censorship”.
I’ve never used this platform but if it really was mostly comprised of alt-right people, therein lies the problem. It becomes an echo chamber that only serves to reinforce pre-existing opinions and world views. Even if it was a left-leaning platform, the echoing results would likely be similar.
Check It Out: So That Social Network Called Gab is Back
I have to agree with MacHeritage; GAB has attracted a lot of “undesirables”, but not because GAB is bad, rather because a lot of mainstream discussion tools have begun censoring. So ANY tool that does not censor will attract the disenfranchised in droves. What those of us who prefer free speech need to do is lend our moderate views as well. As we all know, democracy is messy.
Nobody has ever blocked me – yet I have stopped using FaceBook, Twitter, YouTube and more simply because I am so strongly opposed to censorship.
I was very disappointed to hear that App Store has mandated a policy whereby any app that does not block GAB will not be allowed to be sold.
Apple should not be proactively on the side of anti-free-speech. Nothing… nothing is more un-American – and nothing will backfire as badly – as being on the side of censorship in America.
I have an account there so good for Andrew Torba and Gab. Hope they have a great rest of the year. I know their traffic has spiked to an all new high after going back online. And there are more and more liberals on there every day so it isn’t an echo chamber unless you want it to be so, since users have control over who they see. Don’t like someone, block them. That simple.
The bad guy had accounts spewing the same stuff on other social media sites like Facebook and the usual, but no one shut them down or called for them to be shut down.
Not only that but law enforcement told Andrew Torba that his company had an amazing response time and cooperation compared with other social media sites.