Tech industry trying to censor Gab.ai to shut down free speech and control the narrative

12/27/2016 / By Robert Jonathan

Twitter alternative Gab is facing censorship from the tech industry on two fronts. Twitter apparently no longer allows sharing between the two social media platforms, while Apple rejected the GAB IOS app on the grounds that it includes user-posted pornographic content.

GAB CEO Andrew Torba, a.k.a. the GabFather, is appealing this decision.

“The double standards of Silicon Valley are on full display with this app store rejection from Apple. Apps like Tumblr, Reddit, and Twitter are flooded with pornographic content and allowed to remain on the App store,” he explained in an email to Breitbart Tech.

During the election season, Twitter suspended several users on the political right for alleged hate speech, but seldom took any action for similar behavior on the left. It also was regularly accused of shadow-banning users and hashtags unfavorable to Hillary Clinton.

Also, back in August, Apple CEO Tim Cook hosted a big-ticket fundraiser for Hillary Clinton.

Gab’s issues with “Big Social” are hardly a surprise since it’s no particular secret that Silicon Valley tilts left. You may recall that earlier this year, Facebook found itself engulfed in a controversy over suppressing conservative-oriented stories from its trending news section, which led to a change in curation procedures. It also prompted Torba to decide to develop Gab in the first place.

Moreover, in another questionable decision, in its stated effort to weed out “fake news,” Facebook selected four or five left-wing organizations including Politifact, as fact-checkers.

Parenthetically, allegations also emerged during the campaign that Google was suppressing information unfavorable to Hillary Clinton.

In a separate interview with Breitbart Tech, Torba — a Trump supporter who was kicked out of a Silicon Valley start-up organization after a heated online dispute with other members — noted that his platform won’t engage in politically correct suppression of free speech.

“We believe that the only valid form of censorship is self-censorship, an individual’s freedom to opt-out. Gab empowers users to self-censor and remove unwanted followers, words, phrases, and topics they don’t want to see in their feeds to help stop and prevent different forms harassment. However, we do take steps to protect ourselves and our users from illegal activity.”

Still a work in progress, the rapidly growing Gab.ai, which allows a 300-character message rather than Twitter’s 140, is accepting new users, but there is a bit of a waiting list. Hopefully, Gab will begin to attract a wider audience across the political spectrum.

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Tagged Under: Apple, Censorship, free speech, Gab, Twitter