Gab Temporarily Offline… In Violation Of No Constitutional Principle I Can Think Of

Gab is the alt-right social media platform you go to when you are too racist for Facebook and Twitter. It’s a market solution to the “problem” that other social media platforms are uncomfortable with run-of-the-mill ethnic cleansing postings from white nationalists. What an amazing time to be alive.

Gab is where Robert Bowers, the alleged Tree of Life synagogue shooter, went to announce his intentions.

Now that 11 people are dead, the market has provided. Gab was out of service this morning, as GoDaddy and PayPal have cut ties with the platform.

I have no earthly idea what took them so long. From the statements released to CNET, GoDaddy and PayPal are acting like they just became aware of the world they’ve been living in all this time.

“We have informed Gab.com that they have 24 hours to move the domain to another registrar, as they have violated our terms of service,” said GoDaddy’s Dan Race in an emailed statement. “In response to complaints received over the weekend, GoDaddy investigated and discovered numerous instances of content on the site that both promotes and encourages violence against people.”

On Saturday, PayPal banned Gab and said it had been in the process of canceling the site’s account before the mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue.

“When a site is explicitly allowing the perpetuation of hate, violence or discriminatory intolerance, we take immediate and decisive action,” a PayPal spokesperson said in an email .

“Immediate”? No. Immediate action would have involved cutting Gab off LONG BEFORE Robert Bowers shot up a synagogue.

It has always been clear that Gab is around to give a home to bigots and Nazis. The statements Bowers made on the platform are not new for that platform. People acting on the violent social media statements they make is not new. The only thing that is “new” is that GoDaddy and PayPal decided to give a crap this time.

But, since GoDaddy and PayPal are reacting to the execution of these alt-right ideals — ideals that are voiced all of the time on Gab with apparently no complaint from the internet infrastructure — then… Gab has a reason to be pissed. Gab’s thing is to let Nazis talk without fear of being banned from the platform. That’s their whole thing. That’s why it exists. Reacting to them now that one of their trash Nazi users actually acted on the statements kind of misses the point.

Either you, the private company, supports this alt-right crap, or you don’t. The alt-right promotes white nationalism and ethnic cleansing. Distancing yourself from the alt-right only when one of them tries to ethnically cleanse smacks of hypocrisy.

Gab has been open and notorious about the point of its platform. White nationalists flock to the platform BECAUSE it provides them a safe space to organize and share best practices for harassing minority groups. For GoDaddy and PayPal to realize this only when the bullets start flying suggests that they too are fundamentally okay with the spread of white nationalism… until it makes them look bad. Gab isn’t performance art. If you let these people feel like they’re comfortable, if your company supports the platform where these people are allowed to feel comfortable, then of course these people will act out their white nationalist fantasies from time to time.

For Gab’s part, they’ve vowed to go on. The statement from Gab CEO Andrew Torba is exactly what you’d expect.

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….

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.

To be clear, that “idea” is not freedom of speech. It’s certainly not “individual liberty,” at least not if you happen to cherish the liberty of living in a pluralistic society where white people are not allowed to murder you.
The “idea” is bigotry, and Torba is absolutely right that bigotry cannot be “stopped” by no-platforming Gab.

But you don’t have to help the bigots. The federal government is supposed to stay out of it, but private companies do not have to support the bigotry spewed on Gab.

GoDaddy and PayPal should have figured it out before the Tree of Life shooting. But now that they’ve embraced the concept that helping the alt-right’s project to harass and erase minority groups is a bad look, hopefully they won’t need literal shootings to happen before they no-platform other Nazi safe spaces.

It is truly the very least they can do.

Gab is down as GoDaddy, PayPal pull service following synagogue shooting [CNET]