Complaint Review: Gab.com

Gab.com Paid “Free Speech” & Extremist Allegiance Extortion

“Gab was founded in 2016 by Andrew Torba, a Christian technology entrepreneur who left Silicon Valley to start Gab after he saw the rise in censorship from Big Tech platforms during the 2016 election.” (https://news.gab.com/what-is-gab/)

BACKSTORY

Gab was dropped by major banks and credit card companies in 2020 for allegedly supporting "hate speech", “domestic terrorism”, and other “illegal activities” against US citizens which would basically amount to treason under US federal law (18 USC 2381). (https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/megan-fox/2020/07/01/chinese-style-social-credit-is-here-gab-founder-says-hes-blocked-from-using-visa-over-vague-hate-speech-charge-n594628 and https://news.gab.com/2020/06/19/gab-blacklisted-by-visa/)

At the same time, many politically neutral users, companies, entities, etc were fed up with Facebook, Google, and Twitter censorship especially during the end of 2020 when they began censoring anyone who posted content that didn’t agree with far left US ideologies. (https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/twitters-arbitrary-censorship-is-a-bad-business-model)

A lot of those users (including us) sought refuge at Gab.com and other non-leftist controlled social media.

Many “Facebook refugees” like us have been labeled as “white supremacist terrorists” by leftist individuals, and they went as far as to accuse Gab users and Gab.com (the company itself) of supporting such illegal acts. (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/28/us/gab-robert-bowers-pittsburgh-synagogue-shootings.html)

Gab’s official statement: “ Illegal activity, threats of violence, doxxing, pornography, child exploitation, and spam are not allowed on Gab. “

However we found some of this to be not the case from our experiences and observations of other paid Gab users. This is where the suspected nefarious behavior comes in:

PAID “FREE SPEECH”

Like many users fed up with Facebook censorship, we looked into using Gab as a medium for “freedom of speech”, free of censorship and harassment from leftists and other political extremists.

Gab claims to be funded by "donations" after being cut off from major banks and credit card companies as mentioned above, Gab requests that you donate to them to get certain "badging".

“When you make a donation, you will get a "Donor" badge on your Homepage under your bio. Method #1. Mail your check / money order via US Postal Service to: Gab, AI. P.O. Box 441. Clarks Summit PA, 18411. Important : be sure to include your gab @ name to ensure proper credit and receive your Donor badge.” (https://help.gab.com/faq/how-to-donate-gab-com)

What isn't publicly stated by Gab officials is that the content of users who paid, or “donated”, more to Gab had a higher ranking for dissemination and less prone to censorship. In other words, the more you pay the more exposure and immunity you get on Gab. However the new forms of payment don’t give you any legal protection or recourse if your content gets unpublished, deleted, or censored.

Furthermore, from what we have seen, those who had lesser badges were often the target of actual hate speech and other forms of online libel from other users looking to suppress them. Users (many popular and high profile ones) who apparently paid more (indicated by the badging and other notations on their profile) have posted illegal activity, threats of violence, doxxing, pornography, child exploitation (see screenshots) which are supposedly against Gab’s policies in an attempt to suppress other users.

There is also niches of anonymous Gab users who have donated large amounts while posing as stereotypical “white supremacists” while posting hate towards other white users. These niches (effectively “gangs”) form groups and collaborate to suppress others within the same political and religious ideologies to suppress one another.

Any users who complained about any of the above mentioned content have been censored or deleted themselves, especially when they have not contributed or donated as much money.

It basically becomes a “war” of who pays more while fighting to poise “more white”.

This somewhat adds to the legitimacy of leftist accusations of Gab “harboring white supremacist terrorists” and prior hacking leaks (https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/social-network-gab-hacked-hit-with-500000-ransom-demand/) may expose legitimate Gab users (who aren’t criminals) to legal trouble. Those who “donated” and “verified” can still have their personal information such as; legal name, residential address, traced and sent to the government for further prosecution since its possible Gab may have retained their donation payment information for the government to seize.

Many of our paid (“Pro”) accounts were deleted when we either reported such content or failed to “donate” as much as the antagonistic users did. We never engaged any user who engaged in illegal activities, threats, libel, nor did we engage in those illegal activities themselves.

With Gab requiring “donations” to be paid in the form of non-recoverable means, we are out of any simple legal recourse to recover the funds.

So beware, Gab may appear to be a “neutral platform” but there is an infestation of corruption committed by questionable users enabled by the site’s unspoken bias towards “pay to post” type setup and you do not get any easy means to recover your lost content or money.

We also suspect many users we observed there to be leftists from Facebook/Twitter posing as conservative "white supremacists" and posting "hate speech" as a means portray legitimate users in a bad light. With the changing social and political climate in the world, this can enable an easy witch hunt of anyone who doesn’t fall in line with leftist ideologies.

Unfortunately, Gab isn’t a breath of fresh air, many similar problems plaguing big tech social media still persist. The underlying problem of money, scams, and other illicit activities fueling groups of users of one ideology against another are still apparently there. Being involved in a platform associated with serious illegal acts can also get innocent users in trouble and destroy their lives.