Andrew Torba / Gab (Gab.com / Gab.ai) / Dissenter (dissenter.com) - An incompetent captain sinking millions of other people's dollars.

[Cosmos]

Someone asked me the other day about ordering intoxicants off the “deep web,” I’m amazed at how brave idiots are getting with the internet. Fun to watch, annoying to navigate.

People are so stupid regarding the deep web. I love how the person you talked to thinks that “intoxicants” can just be ordered off the deep web. I mean, I guess they can, but the FBI has their hands full with investigating child rapists, terrorists, and other criminals. They don’t care about idiots who post alt-right propaganda.

 

[Anonymus Fluhre]

When Gab goes down where will poor Sam (M) go to post that he's made another blog post? He'll have to crawl back to Twitter I guess.

 

[Kylie Raina]

So I made a gab account a while ago bc i was curious about the site. Here are my observations: ppl tend to talk a lot about politics. Any other topics are basically nonexistent besides the occasional meme post. In theory, a free speech platform sounds great but with this particular one, there is a very large conservative presence here. Leftists tend to be attacked for their beliefs and its basically an echo chamber for conservatives. I personally believe its good to be exposed to many different beliefs but if an echo chamber is what youre looking for, thats what youre getting.

 

[KiwiMisetté]

So I made a gab account a while ago bc i was curious about the site. Here are my observations: ppl tend to talk a lot about politics. Any other topics are basically nonexistent besides the occasional meme post. In theory, a free speech platform sounds great but with this particular one, there is a very large conservative presence here. Leftists tend to be attacked for their beliefs and its basically an echo chamber for conservatives. I personally believe its good to be exposed to many different beliefs but if an echo chamber is what youre looking for, thats what youre getting.

i mean technically lefties attack conservatives back on twitter/anywhere else so

also is it just me or are right-wingers the only ones who screech a lot about free speech like as if it was their long lost lord and savior?

(btw this is also my observation, so i could be wrong...)

 

[PantsFreeZone]

They appear to have a new hosting site ready to go.

The CTO Ekrem Somethingorother is resigning and being replaced by a new, and hopefully competent, engineer.

The site got some pretty good exposure due to this. Every YouTube video from the mainstream media covering the shooting mentioned and/or blamed Torba and the site and got dislike ratio'd to death.

If the new host is solid and not flakey, I actually think Gab wins this round 8 to 0. The next hurdle for the site is how to process payments, because Paypal and Stripe have both walked away.

 

[cecograph]

People are so stupid regarding the deep web.

"Dark web."

I struggle to work up much emotion here. Not everyone on these sites has an equal voice in the first place, so the worth of freedom of speech is always unevenly distributed. Those who are trying to gain an audience are playing a game of network effects that involves a fair amount of luck.

That said, fuck Twitter and Paypal and just about every one of these tech companies. The web shouldn't be this centralised and out of user's control. The advertising companies can fuck off, as can Torban's monetisation strategy.

 

[MuuMuu Bunnylips]

"Dark web."

"Deep dark web."

Spooky.

 

[AnOminous]

"Dark web."

Just to be specific.

Deep web = basically shit that doesn't show up on search engines. Stuff in databases that can be searched and found, but isn't "out there." For instance, your local courthouse's recorder of deeds office. LexisNexis. Lists of prices on priceline. It's all data that's available on the web, but isn't on the surface.

Dark web = only accessible by some form of access that conceals the recipient and sender. TOR. Freenet. i2p. Other things that aren't publicly mentioned or known.

 

[Daisymae]

They appear to have a new hosting site ready to go.

The CTO Ekrem Somethingorother is resigning and being replaced by a new, and hopefully competent, engineer.

The site got some pretty good exposure due to this. Every YouTube video from the mainstream media covering the shooting mentioned and/or blamed Torba and the site and got dislike ratio'd to death.

If the new host is solid and not flakey, I actually think Gab wins this round 8 to 0. The next hurdle for the site is how to process payments, because Paypal and Stripe have both walked away.

This is a good point. I’m surprised that an ad service hasn’t come up that will work for these type of sites. They’re growing in number, someone should take the challenge of matching ads with their services.

 

[thismanlies]

The next hurdle for the site is how to process payments, because Paypal and Stripe have both walked away.

How hard would it be to start a payment processing company? Given how companies like Paypal will cut people off at the first sign of public outcry, maybe it'd be in Torba's best interest to start one up.

 

[Terrorist]

Torba is a pathetic slackass who thinks he deserves to succeed in spite of his incompetence and laziness just because he's woke. How is his shit any different from Brianna Wu's? It fucking isn't. "NO FAIR NO FAIR DADDY TRUMP PLS HELP" he insists as he slowly turns into andrew dobson

 

[AnOminous]

How hard would it be to start a payment processing company?

Pretty hard. You have to comply with not only federal regulations but the regulations of 50 different states. Just the regulatory compliance end of it can take years and tens of millions of dollars.

 

[Konover]

If you want to be a twitter alternative you already lost, you’re never gonna fucking succeed, no matter how pro-freespeech you are.

 

[Cosmos]

That said, fuck Twitter and Paypal and just about every one of these tech companies. The web shouldn't be this centralised and out of user's control. The advertising companies can fuck off, as can Torban's monetisation strategy.

On one hand, I think companies should have the right to deny service. But on the other hand, monopolies like Google and PayPal have made it so it’s pretty much impossible to get that particular service once they deny it to you. There’s no real alternative for PayPal, Twitter, and Facebook.

 

[Done]

The sjws themselves have a pull factor and to get the sjws you either need to have no competition or at least a facade of censorship.

This and "go woke go broke" are two very contradictory statements IMO.

SJWs don't attract people to platforms anymore than /pol/sters do, did you see anyone go with mastodon because Wil Wheaton (who is someone you can describe as an influencer or whatever) went there for like a week lol?

Normal people go to social networks to find fun/informative stuff, not to politicize everything all day or to culture war (ask any normie about Gamergate and see the answers you get).

We should get Russell Greer on the case.

 

[Harbinger of Kali Yuga]

On one hand, I think companies should have the right to deny service. But on the other hand, monopolies like Google and PayPal have made it so it’s pretty much impossible to get that particular service once they deny it to you. There’s no real alternative for PayPal, Twitter, and Facebook.

It's funny how censorious social media sites were such big supporters of net neutrality and were telling us about how free speech on the web was threatened

 

[Jack Awful]

Torba is very sad that Trump didn't notice his efforts for free speech after all this time:
View attachment 578729

Wait, now I'm confused.
Was it Andrew Torba or Mundane Matt who singlehandedly got Trump elected?

 

[Richard Stabone]

The problem with Gab is that all its users wish they were on Twitter. Even Torba spends most of his time on Twitter.

You also can't be the "free speech" site if you endlessly complain that people are saying mean things about you and that the government needs to make it stop.

There's also some irony in that people like Torba were ecstatic over net neutrality being abolished because the government was keeping it's grubby hands off the open internet. You reap what you sow.

 

[Done]

This is a good point. I’m surprised that an ad service hasn’t come up that will work for these type of sites. They’re growing in number, someone should take the challenge of matching ads with their services.

Ad services require companies that buy advertisement spots on them. Companies that splurge on ads are usually big companies who don't want bad PR.

Who would want to buy a spot on a site that seemingly spawned at least one mass shooter?

Respectable companies curate their customers too. You don't see worthwhile businesses advertising on InfoWars for that same reason.

This also gives you an inkling into why Facebook or Twitter hide any violent perp's accounts, because inevitably you will get speds taking screen captures of Pepsi ads next to pictures of some mass shooter posing with his guns or whatever and making political statements/jokes with them that while protected, are not desirable by advertisers.

 

[Harbinger of Kali Yuga]

There's also some irony in that people like Torba were ecstatic over net neutrality being abolished because the government was keeping it's grubby hands off the open internet. You reap what you sow.

Though both sides are kind of dumb for thinking that NN had much to do with censorship. It didn't, and it's a misrepresentation of the issue. By and large the real threat, IMO, with a lack of NN was (is?) cable companies, companies granted local monopolies by municipalities, putting forward their own streaming solutions or partnering with specific ones and throttling competitors to capture lost revenue from people cutting the cord. It had nothing to do with censorship, your images weren't going to load at dialup speeds, it had nothing to do with monthly fees, so on and so forth.