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The Pittsburgh Suspect's Internet of Hate
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/10/what-gab/574186/The Pittsburgh Suspect’s Internet of Hate
Robert Bowers was an avid user of Gab, a social network popular among white nationalists and the alt-right.
Taylor Lorenz
6:45 PM ET
Before Robert D. Bowers opened fire on the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh Saturday morning, he posted a threat to the Jewish community online.
“HIAS [a Jewish non-profit organization] likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in,” he wrote. Just hours later, he killed at least 10 people and wounded others in what the Anti-Defamation League declared the deadliest against the Jewish community in the history of the United States.
Bowers didn’t make his anti-semitic statements on Twitter or Facebook or even Reddit, but rather on a small social network called Gab. It was founded in 2016 as an alternative to Twitter and other large social platforms, and indeed looks and operates similarly to Twitter, allowing users to follow and reply to each other, and to reshare short status updates.
Gab’s maximalist approach to free speech has made the network the de-facto home to extremist figures who have been booted off mainstream social networks for threats, inciting violence, or promoting racist, sexist, and anti-semitic ideas. While Twitter has banned extremist figures like Milo Yiannopoulos, Richard Spencer, Alex Jones, and Andrew Anglin, Gab continues to welcome them and their followers with open arms. It has been called a “hate-filled echo chamber of racism and conspiracy theories” and “Twitter for racists.”
“HIAS [a Jewish non-profit organization] likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in,” he wrote. Just hours later, he killed at least 10 people and wounded others in what the Anti-Defamation League declared the deadliest against the Jewish community in the history of the United States.
Bowers didn’t make his anti-semitic statements on Twitter or Facebook or even Reddit, but rather on a small social network called Gab. It was founded in 2016 as an alternative to Twitter and other large social platforms, and indeed looks and operates similarly to Twitter, allowing users to follow and reply to each other, and to reshare short status updates.
Gab’s maximalist approach to free speech has made the network the de-facto home to extremist figures who have been booted off mainstream social networks for threats, inciting violence, or promoting racist, sexist, and anti-semitic ideas. While Twitter has banned extremist figures like Milo Yiannopoulos, Richard Spencer, Alex Jones, and Andrew Anglin, Gab continues to welcome them and their followers with open arms. It has been called a “hate-filled echo chamber of racism and conspiracy theories” and “Twitter for racists.”
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https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/12/pro-trump-ceo-gets-booted-from-y-combinator/
Pro-Trump CEO gets booted from Y Combinator over harassment concerns
Andrew Torba, founder of conservative social network Gab.ai, has been removed from Y Combinator’s alumni network.
While Torba paints this as a free speech issue, YC told BuzzFeed that he was kicked out for “for speaking in a threatening, harassing way toward other YC founders” — particularly in this Facebook comment:
Pro-Trump CEO gets booted from Y Combinator over harassment concerns
Andrew Torba, founder of conservative social network Gab.ai, has been removed from Y Combinator’s alumni network.
While Torba paints this as a free speech issue, YC told BuzzFeed that he was kicked out for “for speaking in a threatening, harassing way toward other YC founders” — particularly in this Facebook comment:
All of you: fuck off. Take your morally superior, elitist, virtue signaling bullshit and shove it.
I call it like I see it, and I helped meme a President into office, cucks.
