Timothy Birdnow

The Internet used to be open. That was the wonderful thing about it; there were no censors, no regulators, no thought police. It was just a place to exchange ideas, a wild west free-for-all, sure, but we needed such a thing. But in recent years a few companies have taken almost complete control of the Internet. Those companies - Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon - now regularly censor voices they do not like and ban those with whom they disagree.

"Hard cases make bad law" according to an old legal maxim.

That's why this is such a bad thing; Paypal, one of the critical tools for making and collecting payments and donations online, has banned the Twitter competitor Gab.

An interesting point; Peter Thiel, one of the investors who helped make Facebook into the Titan that it is, came from Paypal. Thiel clearly has a conflict of interest here; Facebook has every reason to seek the destruction of Gab and now has the means. Thiel will profit from this.

Look Facebook already owns Instagram, the primary alternative social media platform. Gab was trying to break into a tight market, and now Paypal is helping Facebook kill Gab.

Gab was the social media platform employed by Robert Gregory Bowers, the man who recently murdered over a dozen people at a synagogue in Pennsylvania. Paypal is cutting them off, ostensibly for allowing Bowers to spew anti-Semitic messages. But Bowers never made open threats as far as I can tell. And without that Gab pretty much was hamstrung, especially as they wish to be what Facebook used to be before the Left Wing began censoring it. Paypal has never dropped Facebook even though left wing radicals have repeatedly made threats on the social network.

Gab also lost its' web platform host Joyent and another payment processor Stripe.

Gab founder and CEO had this to say:

"Twitter and other platforms police ‘hate speech’ as long as it isn’t against President Trump, white people, Christians, or minorities who have walked away from the Democratic Party,”

End excerpt.

And he's vowing to remain online despite efforts to kill his platform.

The big giants in tech have a vested interest in cutting out competitors. What we have these days is a cartel, a corporatist structure run by a few companies. They seem determined to keep it that way - and to prevent conservative voices from being heard. The Left has always sought hegemony over the dissemination of information. They used to own the newspapers and the television stations, and that was just fine. They complain of "rancor" starting with the loss of that hegemony in the '80's, because they lost the ability to manipulate the public. The internet was a large part of that loss of power. Sadly, leftists in Silicon Valley have labored for a long time now to put the genie back in the bottle.

Congress should investigate this.
Update:

A recent statement from Gab:

"Gab has spent the past 48 hours proudly working with the DOJ and FBI to bring justice to an alleged terrorist. Because of the data we provided, they now have plenty of evidence for their case. In the midst of this Gab has been no-platformed by essential internet infrastructure providers at every level. We are the most censored, smeared, and no-platformed startup in history, which means we are a threat to the media and to the Silicon Valley Oligarchy.

Gab isn’t going anywhere.

It doesn’t matter what you write. It doesn’t matter what the sophist talking heads say on TV. It doesn’t matter what verified nobodies say on Twitter. We have plenty of options, resources, and support. We will exercise every possible avenue to keep Gab online and defend free speech and individual liberty for all people.

You have all just made Gab a nationally recognized brand as the home of free speech online at a time when Silicon Valley is stifling political speech they disagree with to interfere in a US election.

The internet is not reality. TV is not reality. 80% of normal everyday people agree with Gab and support free expression and liberty. The online outrage mob and mainstream media spin machine are the minority opinion. People are waking up, so please keep pointing the finger at a social network instead of pointing the finger at the alleged shooter who holds sole responsibility for his actions.

No-platform us all you want. Ban us all you want. Smear us all you want.

You can’t stop an idea.

As we transition to a new hosting provider Gab will be inaccessible for a period of time. We are working around the clock to get Gab.com back online. Thank you and remember to speak freely.

Andrew Torba, CEO Gab.com

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 10:15 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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