Gab.ai Vows to Return After Having It’s Hosting Terminated
Free speech social media alternative gab.ai is currently making arrangements with a new web hosting provider after its current hosting provider Joyent suspended its server. This is due to gab being blamed for facilitating the anti-Semitic material of Pittsburgh synagogue shooter Robert Gregory Bowers who killed 11 Jews on Saturday.
Domain register GoDaddy threatened to revoke it’s domain name and Stripe and PayPal also stopped processing providers to Gab. Gab’s smartphone app had already been refused access to Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android platforms.
The Gab.ai web address currently takes you to a statement which explains they are working with law enforcement agencies in the wake of the Pittsburgh shooting “Gab has spent the past 48 hours proudly working with the DOJ and FBI to bring justice to an alleged terrorist. Because of the data we provided, they now have plenty of evidence for their case”.
It calls itself “the most censored, smeared, and no-platformed startup in history” but vowed it is not going anywhere and that “we will exercise every possible avenue to keep Gab online and defend free speech and individual liberty for all people”.
It is also made no apologizes for its facilitation of absolute free speech including for the alt-right and white nationalist groups arguing “the answer to “bad speech” is more speech”. Censorship and pushing people into the shadows will never be the answer. Words do not kill people. Guns do not kill people. Social media platforms do not kill people. People kill people.”
Gab.ai was founded in 2016 as a free speech alternative to Twitter following the platform’s permanent suspensions of many alt-right accounts. Left wing media outlets have been defending big tech’s latest deplatforming of Gab.ai arguing its content violates a so called internet social contract. The ability of Gab to get back online will be a test of the concept of internet freedom.