- Gab.com, a social networking site popular among the far right, has been reporting tremendous growth over the past few days as technology companies such as Twitter computer accounts and violent incitement posts stall.
- Gab tweeted that he receives more than 10,000 new users every hour.
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Gab.com has reported massive growth following the Capitol uprising, the removal of high-conservatives from Twitter, including President Donald Trump, and the suspension of the Parler app in the Google Store.
Gab, a social networking site popular with the far right, was founded in 2016 by Andrew Torba, who sees it as a vehicle for free speech.
Gab’s layout is similar to Twitter. It displays trending posts in the middle, composite news on the right, and a menu and section for links.
In October 2018, Vox reported that Gab had 465,000 to 800,000 users. In July 2020, Fox Business reported that as of April, the site had more than 1.1 million new cumulative registered accounts and 3.7 million monthly visitors worldwide.
This past Wednesday, the day the Capitol was stormed by pro-Trump rioters, Torba reported that site traffic had risen 40%, according to NPR. The website tweeted on Saturday that it earned more than 10,000 users per hour, and received ’12m visits in the last 12 hours’ just before 11am.
—Gab.com (@getongab) 9 January 2021
In 2017, Google removed Gab’s app from the Google Play Store for violating hate speech policies. It was rejected from Apple’s App Store for related reasons. In 2018, the original domain host, Go Daddy, abandoned the site when it was revealed that gunmen accused of killing 11 congregations in a Pittsburgh synagogue were a regular poster on the site.