Thread: BREAKING: Gab.com Is Suspended After Mass Shooting in Pittsburgh – Paypal Suspends Ac

Yes, without the posts by this guy on Gab.com it's quite possible law enforcement still wouldn't have a clear motive or any basis for hate crime charges. Why would you want to censor the source of killers' intentions and plans? Makes no sense to me, it's like forbidding anyone from telling someone they plan to kill people, which could enable someone to prevent it. It didn't in this case, but it could have. At least there's a record of the intention and the plan without which, premeditated murder and a hate crime charge would be much more difficult to prosecute.

Gab.com fights to stay online after Pittsburgh synagogue shooting



MON OCT 29, 2018 / 9:25 AM





Trevor Hunnicutt and Paresh Dave




(Reuters) - The website where the suspected Pittsburgh synagogue gunman posted anti-Semitic views said on Sunday it was "working around the clock" to stay online after being cut off by payment processors and forced to switch web hosts.


The 46-year-old suspect Robert Bowers has been charged with murdering 11 people on Saturday in the deadliest attack ever on the Jewish community in the United States. Hours earlier, he posted on Gab.com, saying a non-profit that helps Jewish refugees relocate to the country was helping to kill "my people."



PayPal Holdings Inc banned the website from using its money-sending services on Saturday. Gab said on Saturday it received notice it would be blocked by another payments website, Stripe Inc, and had switched to a new web-hosting service after Joyent Inc warned it would cut off the website.



Gab did not say who the new web host was.



"Working around the clock to see to it that Gab.com stays online," the company posted on Twitter on Sunday. "FREE SPEECH WILL ALWAYS WIN."


Founded in 2016 by conservative Andrew Torba, Gab bills itself as the "free speech" alternative to Twitter Inc and Facebook Inc and has become a popular place to post content unwelcome or prohibited on other platforms.


Bowers, 46, joined the site in January.



Notable users include right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos and Andrew Anglin, the founder of the neo-Nazi Daily Stormer website, as well as media personalities Alex Jones and Carl Benjamin.



The free website charges for access to additional features and also raises money on the crowdfunding website StartEngine.




Torba did not respond to a request for comment on Sunday.



Utsav Sanduja, Gab's former chief operating officer, said the company and its mission will survive "guilt by association" and could do more fundraising through cryptocurrencies in order to bypass tech companies.


"We created Gab for the purpose of letting off steam not to kill. That was not our intention," he said.


In earlier statements the website said it was it was cooperating with law enforcement authorities and described the moves by PayPal and others as acts of "direct collusion between big tech giants." It also called on U.S. President Donald Trump to act.


PayPal declined to comment on Sunday beyond an earlier statement that the company takes immediate action when "a site is allowing the perpetuation of hate, violence or discriminatory intolerance."


Joyent could not immediately be reached, and Stripe declined to comment on individual users.





Sanduja did say that there could be room for Gab to improve.


"The mission should not change, but certainly there does need to be better checks and balances in place," he said.


Sanduja said he left his role at the website in June after Gab users threatened his life and that of his wife, who works at a synagogue.


On Sunday, Gab's forum lit up with comments about the Pittsburgh attack. One user celebrated Gab being banned by PayPal while another user responded, "You are going to get shot at ur local synagogue." Another posted, "I WAS RIGHT, THEY FAKED THE SYNAGOGUE SHOOTING."


Gab raised $1 million through crowdfunding last year, but recorded a loss of $201,704, according to a document filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.


Microsoft Corp said in an emailed statement that it terminated Gab's accounts on its Azure cloud computing platform last month.





Alphabet Inc's Google and Apple Inc's mobile app stores previously blocked Gab, cutting off a crucial source of access to new users.


Facebook's archive of ads that it considers political in nature shows Gab has run only one such ad since May. It paid less than $100 for that ad and generated 1,000 to 5,000 views last month, according to the archive.


The company had no active ad campaigns on Facebook or Twitter Inc as of Saturday, according to those companies' ad transparency databases. Gab's account on Twitter warned users on Saturday to expect that they would be banned from that website and Facebook soon.


A Facebook spokeswoman said the company is reviewing Gab's presence on its website. Twitter declined to comment.


(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Paresh Dave; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Meredith Mazzilli)



https://in.mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idINKCN1N30BA

The suspension of GAB as it relates to the postings by the alleged shooter at the Pittsburgh synagogue is mentioned on FOX News.

CNN is criticizing GAB for providing platform to the shooter.

Free Speech Platform Gab Goes Offline as GoDaddy Joins Big Tech Blacklisting

Gab, the social network popular with the far right, has temporarily shut down after GoDaddy pulled its support

October 29, 2018

Sean Wolfe


Thomson Reuters

• GoDaddy is the latest company to pull support from Gab, a social network popular with the far right that doesn't police hate speech and positions itself as an alternative to Facebook and Twitter.

• The web-hosting company GoDaddy gave Gab 24 hours to find another hosting provider, and Gab is now shut down until it finds another host.
• In a statement to The Verge, GoDaddy said it "discovered numerous instances of content on the site that both promotes and encourages violence against people."
• The suspect in the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting that left 11 dead and six injured over the weekend is believed to have used Gab and posted anti-Semitic messages on it, including one right before the attack.

GoDaddy has joined the list of companies ending their business relationship with Gab, a social network popular with the far right for its policy of not policing hate speech.


In a statement to The Verge on Sunday night, GoDaddy confirmed that it gave Gab 24 hours to find another web-hosting service after it "discovered numerous instances of content on the site that both promotes and encourages violence against people."


Gab's website appeared to be out of service Monday afternoon, with the homepage showing only a statement by Gab CEO Andrew Torba, who said Gab was "the most censored, smeared, and no-platformed startup in history, which means we are a threat to the media and to the Silicon Valley Oligarchy." The statement said Gab would be "inaccessible" while employees worked to get it back online.


Though by no means as large as its competitors like Facebook and Twitter, Gab poses itself as an alternative to popular social networks and doesn't punish users for hate speech or what many other social networks would deem offensive behavior. Thus, it's become popular with members of the far right who have become dissatisfied other social networks and their terms of service, which often include rules about respecting others and not engaging in harassing behavior.

Gab made headlines this week in reports indicating that the suspect in the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting used Gab and posted anti-Semitic messages there, including one right before the attack, which left 11 people dead and six others injured.

Following the shooting, PayPal, Medium, Stripe, and Joyent also blocked Gab from accessing their services.

Here's the full statement from Torba on Gab's homepage:


"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. In the midst of this Gab has been no-platformed by essential internet infrastructure providers at every level. We are the most censored, smeared, and no-platformed startup in history, which means we are a threat to the media and to the Silicon Valley Oligarchy.

"Gab isn't going anywhere.

"It doesn't matter what you write. It doesn't matter what the sophist talking heads say on TV. It doesn't matter what verified nobodies say on Twitter. We have plenty of options, resources, and support. We will exercise every possible avenue to keep Gab online and defend free speech and individual liberty for all people.

"You have all just made Gab a nationally recognized brand as the home of free speech online at a time when Silicon Valley is stifling political speech they disagree with to interfere in a US election.

"The internet is not reality. TV is not reality. 80% of normal everyday people agree with Gab and support free expression and liberty. The online outrage mob and mainstream media spin machine are the minority opinion. People are waking up, so please keep pointing the finger at a social network instead of pointing the finger at the alleged shooter who holds sole responsibility for his actions.

"No-platform us all you want. Ban us all you want. Smear us all you want.

"You can't stop an idea.

"As we transition to a new hosting provider Gab will be inaccessible for a period of time. We are working around the clock to get Gab.com back online. Thank you and remember to speak freely.

"Andrew Torba, CEO Gab.com"

Read our walkthrough of Gab here.


https://www.businessinsider.com/gab-...upport-2018-10

Free Speech Platform Gab Goes Offline as GoDaddy Joins Big Tech Blacklisting


October 29, 2018

Lucas Nolan







Free speech platform Gab has taken its site offline in advance of its web hosting being cut off, and has faced further blacklisting by Big Tech companies, including domain registrar GoDaddy, which told Gab to immediately transfer to another registrar or face suspension of its domain name, effectively holding the site hostage.


Gab, the free speech platform competing with the Silicon Valley Masters of the Universe, has been taken offline temporarily following hosting provider Joyent giving them just 48 hours to find a new host. While searching for a new host, Gab’s domain Registrar GoDaddy contacted the company to inform them that they had allegedly discovered content on the social media platform which “promoted and encouraged violence.” The warning noted that Gab must immediately transfer their domain registrar services to another provider or face the suspension of their domain, meaning Gab.com would not direct to their website wherever it is hosted.


The warning that Gab received can be seen below:





Payment processing services PayPal and Stripe have also informed Gab that they will no longer be allowing them to use their services. “When a site is allowing the perpetuation of hate, violence or discriminatory intolerance, we take immediate and decisive action,” PayPal spokesman Justin Higgs said in a statement to CNBC.


Since then, Gab has published a statement noting that they have been working with the Department of Justice and FBI to help them gain more information on the individual behind the shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh who allegedly had an account on Gab.com

Share this everywhere. pic.twitter.com/eNZLjy4z4e
— Gab.com�� (@getongab) October 29, 2018

A series of tweets from the official Gab.com account read: “In the midst of this Gab has been no-platformed by essential internet infrastructure providers at every level. We are the most censored, smeared, and no-platformed startup in history, which means we are a threat to the media and to the Silicon Valley Oligarchy. Gab.com isn’t going anywhere. It doesn’t matter what you write. It doesn’t matter what the sophist talking heads say on TV. It doesn’t matter what verified nobodies say on Twitter. We have plenty of options, resources, and support.”


Gab’s Chief Technical Officer, who lives in Turkey, also left the company, citing “attacks from the American press” for his departure from the upstart social media company:






Gab has regularly faced blacklisting, particularly from those in the tech industry such as Apple and Google. Breitbart News reported in August of 2017 that the Gab app for Android phones was banned from the official Google Play store, in December of 2016 Apple rejected the app from their app store. Despite this, Gab continued to grow in popularity, particularly following the suspension of conservative figures from other social media platforms, Gab gained approximately 16,000 new users after InfoWars host Alex Jones was banned from a number of social media platforms.

Gab is still currently inaccessible as the website moves to a new hosting provider, but the company told Breitbart News that they hope the downtime is limited to a few days.




https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/...-blacklisting/