Gab (social network)

Gab, Inc.
Speak Freely
Type of site
 Social networking service
Available in English
Headquarters Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States[1]
Founder(s) Andrew Torba
Ekrem Büyükkaya
Industry Internet
Website gab.com
Alexa rank Increase 8,526 (Global, October 2018)[2]
Registration Required
Users 465,000[3]
Launched August 2016 (August 2016) (beta)[4]
May 2017 (May 2017) (open registration)
Current status Active
Written in PHP, Laravel

Gab is a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-based social networking service formerly based in Austin, Texas.[5][1] It was created as an alternative to Twitter and promotes itself as supporting free speech.[6] It allows its users to read and write messages of up to 300 characters, called "gabs". The site also offers multimedia functionality.

Gab has been described as a platform for white supremacists and the alt-right.[7][8][9][10]

History

Gab was created in August 2016[4] as an alternative to the popular social network Twitter.[11] Founder and CEO Andrew Torba cited "the entirely left-leaning Big Social monopoly"[11] as part of the inspiration for Gab, which he created "after reading reports that Facebook employees suppress conservative articles".[12] Torba said in November that the site's user base had expanded significantly following censorship controversies involving major social media companies,[13] including the permanent suspensions from Twitter of several prominent alt-right accounts.[14]

In December 2016, Gab.ai's submission of its app to the iOS App Store was declined by Apple. Apple cited pornographic content as the reason. At the same time, Twitter also cut off access to its API without specifying a reason.[15][16] A resubmitted version of the app which blocked pornography by default was also rejected for violating Apple's rules on hate speech.[17]

After 9 months of closed beta testing, as of May 2017 the site is open to anyone registering with an email.[18]

On July 22, 2017, the site added Pro accounts and on August 1, 2017, Gab TV was opened up to Pro members.[19] It was described as a service for creating Periscope-like video streaming channels. According to Andrew Torba, the site was hit with a DDoS attack soon afterwards.[20]

On August 17, 2017, Google removed Gab's app from the Google Play Store for violating its policy against hate speech.[16] Google stated that the app did not "demonstrate a sufficient level of moderation, including for content that encourages violence and advocates hate against groups of people."[21] In September 2017, Gab filed an antitrust suit against Google for their removal of the Gab app from the Google Play Store[22] but dropped the suit on October 22, 2017.[23]

In September 2017, Gab faced pressure from its domain registrar to take down a post by Daily Stormer founder Andrew Anglin.[24] Danny O'Brien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation commented that this pressure was part of an increase in politically motivated domain name seizures.[6]

On August 9, 2018, Torba announced that Microsoft Azure, Gab's host, threatened to suspend the site for "weeks/months" if they didn't remove two Antisemitic posts made by Patrick Little, a political candidate who had previously been ejected from the GOP for his antisemitism.[25][26][27] According to The Verge, the posts "express intense anti-Semitism and meet any reasonable definition of hate speech."[27] Little deleted the posts while saying the complaint was a violation of his rights as an American.[27] On that same day, Alex Jones interviewed Torba on The Alex Jones Show during his coverage of his own permanent ban from YouTube.[28]

Users

The site has been described as a favorite of alt-right users who have been banned or suspended from other services,[14][29] including former Breitbart writer Milo Yiannopoulos,[30] formerly anonymous Twitter user "Ricky Vaughn",[12][14] and white supremacists such as Richard B. Spencer,[4][12] Tila Tequila,[13] Vox Day,[31] and Britain First.[32] Andrew Torba, the CEO of Gab.ai, was himself removed from the Y Combinator alumni network because of harassment concerns, starting when he used "build the wall" to insult a Latino CEO.[33][34] Until 2016, Torba was registered as a Democrat, although he voted for Donald Trump and other Republicans.[35]

Other alt-right and conservative media personalities, including Carl Benjamin, Ann Coulter, Alex Jones, Stefan Molyneux, Lauren Southern and Paul Joseph Watson,[36] were found to be among Gab's most popular users in a 2018 study of the platform.[37] The authors also performed an automated search using hatebase and found "hate words" in 5.4% of Gab posts, which they stated was 2.4 times higher than Twitter and less than half of 4chan's politically incorrect board.[37]

Notable former users include white nationalist political candidate Paul Nehlen, who was kicked-off the site for doxing Ricky Vaughn,[38] and blackhat hacker Andrew Auernheimer (known as weev) who was banned for calling for genocide against Jews and endorsing terrorist Timothy McVeigh.[6] Auernheimer's activity prompted threats from Gab's then webhost Asia Registry to remove the comments or they would refuse to host the site. Gab has since found another host.[6]

Reception

Gab has been described as "Twitter for racists" by Salon, a "hate-filled echo chamber of racism and conspiracy theories" by The Guardian, and "safe haven for banned Twitter trolls, Gamergaters, Pizzagaters and high-profile white nationalists" by Mic.[35][39][40] An editorial in Wired criticized Gab for not explicitly prohibiting hate speech.[41] The only restrictions on expression on the site are on threats of violence, promotion of terrorism, child pornography, revenge porn and doxing.[42][1]

Torba has denied that Gab is "designed specifically for conservatives" and has stated that "we welcome everyone and always will".[13][4] He has further said that "We want everyone to feel safe on Gab, but we're not going to police what is hate speech and what isn't".[41] In response to criticism, in March 2017, Gab announced its plans to make the site more diverse by removing the downvote button. According to Torba, this feature was also being abused by "social justice warriors".[35]

Revenue

Gab does not use advertising. The site began offering a premium subscription service for Gab named "Gab Pro" in April 2017. Gab Pro has a monthly option for $5.99 a month. The subscription allows users to have private chats for up to 25 people, which was later added for all users with two users maximum and Gab Pro with 50 maximum. Messages are deleted after 24 hours. Gab Pro subscribers can also view a topic breakdown for other users, make lists of users to sort their home feed, livestream on GabTV (Gab's video-sharing service), and more easily get their profile verified. Subscribers also get a "PRO" badge next to their posts. In July 2017 Gab also started an investment project which met its goal of $1.07 million on August 19, 2017.[43][24]

On August 15, 2017, Torba announced plans for its own cryptocurrency, expecting Gab to be subject to "blacklisting" by third-party payment processors.[44]

Design

The "Gabby" logo, used from 2016 to 2018.

Gab's color theme is a minimalist combination of black text on white panels with pink hashtags and usernames. Pro users have a contrasted top bar in dark blue closer to that of Facebook. The interface "behaves like a Twitter-Reddit hybrid",[14] displaying messages in a Twitter-like vertically-scrolling timeline format with a Reddit-like option to upvote or downvote each post. The site also aggregates popular posts and trending topic hashtags.[13][14][41] Users can sort comments and posts in a subject by time or score. Default biographies for new users display a randomly chosen quotation about the importance of free speech.[35]

When writing a gab, Gabbers without a Pro subscription can post up to 300 characters of plain text, while those with a Pro account can write up to 3,000 characters per gab.[13] The first 300 characters of a gab appear in the timeline, with an option to read the rest of a gab if it is longer.[45] Additional functionality is similar to Twitter, using # to create hashtags and @ to reference other users by username. Gabs can embed some multimedia, currently limited to emoji, photo upload, and Giphy animated GIFs. In addition, hyperlinks can be embedded, with some content such as YouTube videos displaying a thumbnail preview. Each Gab account can optionally be linked to a Twitter account for cross-posting, which can be enabled or disabled before a gab is published. When enabled, the gab is tweeted up to around the first 100 characters, along with a link to the gab.

In July 2017, Gab implemented a system where people who downvoted others (through spamming) would have their account downvoted too and their ability to leave downvotes revoked.[46][47][48][49] Downvotes were subsequently removed entirely. Gab COO Utsav Sanduja explained that downvotes were being used to drive female users off the site.[35] Downvoting was later reinstated; as of December 2017 both upvotes and downvotes are possible, but the totals are tracked and displayed separately rather than being combined into a single score.

A frog named "Gabby"[12] was the logo of Gab as of 2016. Torba has said that the frog logo was inspired by Bible verses (Exodus 8:1-8:12 and Psalms 78:45) and various other traditional symbolic meanings. The logo has been compared to Pepe the Frog, a cartoon character commonly used as a meme by the alt-right.[12][39] As of September 2018, the frog logo was no longer used.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 Franke-Ruta, Garance (2017-09-22). "Gab, the social network of the 'Alt-Right' fights to stay online". Yahoo News. Retrieved 2018-04-03.
  2. ↑ "gab.ai Traffic Statistics". Alexa Internet. Amazon.com. 28 July 2018. Retrieved 28 July 2018.
  3. ↑ Torba, Andrew (May 2, 2018). "April Community Update". Gab. Retrieved May 2, 2018. April Community Update: 465,000 total Gabbers
  4. 1 2 3 4 Wilson, Jason (November 17, 2016). "Gab: alt-right's social media alternative attracts users banned from Twitter". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved December 3, 2016.
  5. ↑ "Interview with Andrew Torba from Gab.ai". youtube.com. Retrieved May 22, 2017.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Edison Hayden, Michael (22 September 2017). "Nazis on Gab social network show there is no such thing as a free speech internet". Newsweek. Retrieved 6 May 2018.
  7. ↑ Roose, Kevin (2017-12-11). "Th 'alt-right' created a parallel Internet. It's a holy mess". CNBC. Retrieved 2018-05-14.
  8. ↑ Bennett, Tom (2018-04-05). "Gab is the alt-right social network racists are moving to". Vice. Retrieved 2018-05-14.
  9. ↑ Urbain, Thomas (2016-12-11). "Growing platform Gab woos 'alt-right' exiled from other social media". Times of Israel. Retrieved 2018-05-14.
  10. ↑ Cale Guthrie Weissman (2016-11-18). "Inside Gab: The new Twitter alternative championed by the alt-right". Fast Company. Retrieved 2018-05-14.
  11. 1 2 "This New Social Network Promises Almost-Total Free Speech To Its Users". BuzzFeed. Retrieved December 3, 2016.
  12. 1 2 3 4 5 Hess, Amanda (November 30, 2016). "The Far Right Has a New Digital Safe Space". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved December 3, 2016.
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 Shaw, Adam (November 28, 2016). "As Twitter cracks down on alt-right, aggrieved members flee to 'Gab'". Fox News. Retrieved December 3, 2016.
  14. 1 2 3 4 5 Ohlheiser, Abby (November 29, 2016). "Banned from Twitter? This site promises you can say whatever you want". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved December 3, 2016.
  15. ↑ Rodriguez, Salvador (December 15, 2016). "Gab, the Alt-Right's Favorite Social Network, Gets Rejections From Apple, Twitter". Inc.com. Retrieved September 7, 2017.
  16. 1 2 Rob Price (August 18, 2017). "Google's app store has banned Gab — a social network popular with the far-right — for 'hate speech'". Business Insider UK. Retrieved August 18, 2017.
  17. ↑ Lee, Timothy B. (August 18, 2017). "Google explains why it banned the app for Gab, a right-wing Twitter rival". Ars Technica. Retrieved September 7, 2017.
  18. ↑ "New social site Gab is getting popular with the 'alt-right'". Engadget. Retrieved December 3, 2016.
  19. ↑ Jon Del Arroz (2017-06-14). "How to keep your online browsing unfiltered by political propaganda". The Federalist. Retrieved 2018-04-03.
  20. ↑ "Announcement from Andrew Torba's Gab account". Gab.
  21. ↑ Coldewey, Devin (August 17, 2017). "Alt-social network Gab booted from Google Play Store for hate speech". Techcrunch. Retrieved August 18, 2017.
  22. ↑ "Google faces lawsuit over removing Gab from Play Store". BBC News. September 18, 2017. Retrieved September 27, 2017.
  23. ↑ "Gab Drops Its Lawsuit Against Google; Considers Trying Its Hand At Lobbying". Techdirt. Retrieved November 3, 2017.
  24. 1 2 Robertson, Adi (2017-09-06). "Far-right friendly social network Gab is facing censorship controversy". Retrieved 2018-04-03.
  25. ↑ "Gab user deletes anti-Semitic content after Microsoft Azure threatened to shut down the site". GeekWire. 2018-08-09. Retrieved 2018-08-10.
  26. ↑ "Microsoft warns Gab it'll pull service over anti-Semitic posts". CNET. 2018-08-10. Retrieved 2018-08-10.
  27. 1 2 3 Brandom, Russell (9 August 2018). "Microsoft threatened to drop hosting for Gab over hate speech posts". The Verge. Retrieved 13 August 2018.
  28. ↑ "Right-wing platforms provide refuge to digital outcasts — and Alex Jones". NBC News. Retrieved 2018-08-10.
  29. ↑ Andrews, Travis (November 16, 2016). "'A great purge?': Twitter suspends Richard Spencer, other prominent alt-right accounts". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved November 20, 2017.
  30. ↑ Heil, Emily (November 22, 2016). "Tila Tequila's Twitter account suspended after appearance at white nationalist convention". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved December 5, 2016.
  31. ↑ Robertson, Adi (2017-10-09). "Two months ago, the Internet tried to banish Nazis. No one knows if it worked". The Verge. Retrieved 2018-04-03.
  32. ↑ Marsh, Susan (20 December 2017). "Britain First signs up to fringe social media site after Twitter ban". The Guardian.
  33. ↑ Ha, Anthony. "Pro-Trump CEO gets booted from Y Combinator over harassment concerns | TechCrunch". Retrieved June 5, 2017.
  34. ↑ "Trump-Supporting CEO Kicked Out Of Y Combinator Startup Incubator". BuzzFeed. Retrieved June 5, 2017.
  35. 1 2 3 4 5 Ehrenkranz, Melanie (2017-03-17). "Gab, a haven for White Nationalists, is now trying to reach young, diverse progressives". Mic. Retrieved 2018-04-03.
  36. ↑ https://gab.ai/pauljosephwatson
  37. 1 2 Zannettou, Savvas; Bradlyn, Barry; De Cristofaro, Emiliano; Kwak, Haewoon; Sirivianos, Michael; Stringhini, Gianluca; Blackburn, Jeremy (2018-03-13) [14 Feb 2018]. "What is Gab? A bastion of free speech or an alt-right echo chamber?" (Report). 3rd Cybersafety Workshop. arXiv:1802.05287 [cs.SI]. Cite uses deprecated parameter |class= (help)
  38. ↑ Pink, Aiden (5 April 2018). "Even the Alt-Right Is Sick of Paul Nehlen". The Forward. Retrieved 6 May 2018.
  39. 1 2 Benson, Thor. "Inside the "Twitter for racists": Gab — the site where Milo Yiannopoulos goes to troll now". Salon. Retrieved December 3, 2016.
  40. ↑ "Inside the hate-filled echo chamber of racism and conspiracy theories". The Guardian. December 17, 2016. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved June 6, 2017.
  41. 1 2 3 Ellis, Emma Grey. "Gab, the Alt-Right's Very Own Twitter, Is The Ultimate Filter Bubble". WIRED. Retrieved December 3, 2016.
  42. ↑ "Guidelines. | Gab". gab.ai. Retrieved December 3, 2016.
  43. ↑ "Gab". StartEngine. Retrieved July 12, 2017.
  44. ↑ "Happy Birthday, Gab: Announcing Our Plans For An ICO 🐸🎂". medium.com. Retrieved September 16, 2017.
  45. ↑ "Gab". gab.ai. January 16, 2018. Retrieved January 24, 2018.
  46. ↑ "Andrew Torba on Gab". Retrieved July 12, 2017.
  47. ↑ "Andrew Torba on Gab". Retrieved July 12, 2017.
  48. ↑ "Gab HQ on Gab". Retrieved July 12, 2017.
  49. ↑ "Ekrem Büyükkaya on Gab". Retrieved July 12, 2017.
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