Gab.com, the social media-friendly social network, says traffic has increased by more than 750 percent over the past few days following President Donald Trump’s blacklist from most technology platforms.
“Our traffic has increased by 753% in the past 24 hours. Tens of millions of visits, ”Gab said in response to a question about slow loading speeds.
The free voice network announced that it would bring ten new servers online to handle the increased traffic volume.
Gab was the first alternative to freedom of speech to Twitter. It takes a hard line on freedom of speech, which allows all legal content except pornography. Users may control their own experience on the platform by creating custom word filters and blocks.
Gab takes an equally hard line on illegal content and threats of violence, and encourages users to proactively report such content for removal.
Despite these years of policy, both Apple and Google banned the Gab app in their app stores for years, a fate that also plagued Parler.
We have tens of thousands of volunteer users who monitor the site for threats and illegal activities. They escalate it to us and if necessary, we escalate it to law enforcement. Our moderation is decentralized via Gab groups, which are moderated by users themselves.
– Gab.com (@getongab) 9 January 2021
Launched in May 2017, Gab has attempted censorship and repression from various quarters, leading to innovative approaches to circumventing it.
To prevent censorship by cloud hosting companies, Gab maintains its own physical servers. Gab is also developing the Gab phone to bypass censorship of the app store.
Meet the Gab Phone.
Yes, it really is.
We run @GrapheneOS on a Pixel 4a.
This is Android minus everything and more that Google has with additional security and privacy features. pic.twitter.com/FuSBjlNMLI
– Gab.com (@getongab) 10 January 2021
Gab also developed Dissenter, a browser extension that adds a comments section to every web site on the Internet. When mainstream browsers like Chrome and Mozilla Firefox banned the extension, Gab launched his own web browser, also called Dissenter.
In response to the increase in traffic, Gab’s founder and CEO Andrew Torba made a concise remark to Breitbart News:
“Chess mat, Silicon Valley.”
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. His new book, #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election, which features exclusive interviews with sources in Google, Facebook and other tech companies, is currently on sale.