Gab is a social networking service based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania that used to be based in Austin, Texas. It was created as an alternative to Twitter and promoted itself as a supporter of freedom of speech. Gab has been described as a platform for white and top-right supremacy.
It allows users to read and write messages of up to 300 characters, called "gabs". The site also offers multimedia functionality.
Video Gab (social network)
History
Gab was created in August 2016 as an alternative to the popular social network Twitter. Founder and CEO Andrew Torba cited "a completely left-leaning Big Social monopoly" as part of the inspiration for Gab, which he created "after reading reports that Facebook employees are pressing conservative articles". Torba said in November that the site's user base has grown significantly after censoring controversy involving major social media companies, including a permanent suspension from Twitter from some prominent top-right accounts.
In December 2016, Gab.ai's app submission to the iOS App Store was rejected by Apple. Apple cites pornographic content as the reason. At the same time, Twitter also disconnects access to its API without specifying the reason. The version of blocked apps that block pornography by default is also rejected for violating Apple rules for hate speech.
After 9 months of closed beta testing, starting May 2017 this site is open to anyone who signs up with email.
On July 22, 2017, the site added a Pro account and on August 1, 2017, Gab TV was opened for Pro members. It was described as a service for creating video streaming channels like Periscope. According to Andrew Torba, the site was hit by a DDoS attack soon after.
On August 17, 2017, Google removed the Gab app from the Google Play Store for violating its policy against hate speech. Google claims that the app does not "show moderate levels of moderation, including for content that encourages violence and promotes hate toward groups of people." In September 2017, Gab filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google for the removal of Gab's app from the Google Play Store but canceled the lawsuit on October 22, 2017.
In September 2017, Gab faced pressure from his domain registrar to take down the post by Stormer's founder Andrew Anglin. Danny O'Brien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation commented that this pressure is part of an increase in politically motivated domain name attacks.
Maps Gab (social network)
Users
This site has been described as a prohibited or suspended alpha prohibited or suspended user span of other services, including former Breitbart writer Milo Yiannopoulos, anonymous Twitter user "Ricky Vaughn", and white supremacy like Richard B. Spencer, Tila Tequila, Vox Day, and Britain First. Andrew Torba, CEO of Gab.ai, himself excommunicated from the Y Combinator alumni network for abuse problems, started when he used "building a wall" to insult the CEO of Latino. Torba has been described as "a registered Democrat until 2016" despite voting for Donald Trump and other Republicans.
Other appropriate and conservative media personalities, including Carl Benjamin, Ann Coulter, Alex Jones, Stefan Molyneux, Lauren Southern and Paul Joseph Watson, were found to be one of Gab's most popular users in platform studies in 2018. The authors also conducted a search automatically using a hatebase and found "hate speech" at 5.4% of Gab's post, which they stated was 2.4 times higher than Twitter and 2.2 times lower than the incorrect 4chan political council.
Former renowned users include white nationalist candidate Paul Nehlen, who was kicked out of the site for doxing Ricky Vaughn, and blackhat hacker Andrew Auernheimer (known as weev) forbidden for calling for genocide against Jews and supporting terrorist Timothy McVeigh. Auernheimer's activity pushes the threat from Gab's then the Asia Registry webhost to delete comments or they will refuse to host. Gab has since found another host.
Reception
Gab has been described as "Twitter for racists" by Salon , a "hate space echo of racism and conspiracy theorists" by The Guardian , and "safe haven for banned" Twitter troll , Gamergaters, Pizzagaters, and high-profile white nationalists. "An editorial in Wired criticized Gab for not explicitly forbidding hate speech The only ban on expression on the site is the threat of violence, promotion terrorism, child pornography, porn vengeance and doxing.
Torba denied that Gab was "specially designed for conservatives" and has stated that "we welcome everyone and always will". He has further said that "We want everyone to feel safe in Gab, but we will not police what is hate speech and what is not". In response to criticism, in March 2017, Gab announced his plans to make the site more diverse by removing downvote buttons. According to Torba, this feature is also abused by "social justice fighters".
Revenue
Gab does not use ads. The site began offering premium subscription service for Gab named "Gab Pro" in April 2017. Gab Pro has a monthly option of $ 5.99 per month. This subscription allows users to have private chats of up to 25 people, which are then added for all users with a maximum of two users and Gab Pro with 50 maximum. Message deleted after 24 hours. Gab Pro customers can also view topic descriptions for other users, create user lists to sort their home feeds, live stream on GabTV (Gab video sharing service), and more easily get their profiles verified. Customers also earn a "PRO" badge next to their posts. In July 2017 Gab also started an investment project that achieved $ 1.07 million target on August 19, 2017.
On August 15, 2017, Torba announced plans for its own cryptocurrency, expecting Gab to be subject to a "blacklist" by a third-party payment processor.
Design
The color of the Gab theme is a minimalist combination of black text on a white panel with pink tags and usernames. Pro users have a contrasting top blade in darker blue closer to those on Facebook. The interface "behaves like a Twitter-Reddit hybrid", displays messages in a vertical-time vertical-scrolling Twitter format with the Reddit-like option for upvote or downvote each post. The site also collects popular posts and topic trending tags. Users can sort comments and post on subjects based on time or score. The standard biography for new users displays randomly selected citations of the importance of free speech.
When writing chats, Gabbers without a Pro subscription can post up to 300 plain text characters, while those with Pro accounts can write up to 3,000 characters per call. The first 300 characters of the gab appear in the timeline, with the option to read the rest of the chats if it's longer. Additional functionalities are similar to Twitter, using # to create hashtags and @ to refer other users by user name. Gabs can embed some multimedia, which is currently limited to emoji, photo uploads and Gip animated GIFs. In addition, hyperlinks can be embedded, with some content like YouTube videos showing thumbnail previews. Each optional Gab account can be linked to a Twitter account for cross-posting, which can be enabled or disabled before the chat is published. When enabled, the chats are tweeted to about the first 100 characters, along with a link to the chat.
In July 2017, Gab implemented a system in which people who lowered the voice of others (via spam) would lose their account and their ability to abandon downvotes was revoked. Downvotes are then deleted entirely. Gab CCO Utsav Sanduja explains that downvotes are used to encourage female users out of the site. Downvoting is then restored; by December 2017, both upvote and downvote are possible, but the totals are tracked and displayed separately rather than merged into a single score.
The frog named "Gabby" is Gab's current logo. Torba says that the frog logo is inspired by Bible verses (Exodus 8: 1-8: 12 and Psalms 78:45) and other traditional symbolic meanings. The logo has been compared to Pepe the Frog, a cartoon character usually used as a meme by alt-right.
See also
- Voat
References
External links
- Official website
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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