Gab, a social network preferred by the alt-right that exploded in popularity after the riots at the U.S. Capitol, was offline Friday night and his Twitter account also went dark.
Twitter users first started posting the site and the accompanying social media account declined around 6:30 p.m. Eastern time.
At least one Twitter user who claims he was on Gab just before it got dark, Friday night speculated that the site had been hacked as part of a crypto-currency scam. The Post could not verify the theory.
The site reopened before midnight Friday with a report by CEO Andrew Torba, in which he explained that it had been “taken out of abundance of caution” after less than 20 accounts started ‘bitcoin wallet spam and related content’.
“As a result of our prompt action, zero bitcoin was sent to one of the mailing addresses and the accounts concerned were secured,” the statement said.
The statement added that a ‘security vulnerability’ has been set up in the code base of the site.
Gab was taken offline by his host in 2018 after the suspect in the massacre at the Pittsburgh Synagogue posted anti-Semitic outbursts and conspiracy theories. It then adopted cryptocurrency for payments to technology companies.