Counter-Currents
Andrew Torba
1,681 words
Nothing has given me more respect for the social media site Gab than watching other people try to do what Andrew Torba has done.
For many years, Gab was sort of a joke. Its reputation was as a cesspool of the Alt Right’s most socially dysfunctional elements — people who had not only been banned from every other social media site (back when getting banned required a lot more effort) but also from most White Nationalist message boards for being too spergy.
In 2018, Robert Bowers did Gab no favors when he pogromed 11 Jews at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. Bowers’ final social media post, including the iconic phrase “Screw your optics, I’m going in,” was broadcast to the world on Gab. To make matters worse, the same day, one of Bowers’ friends on Gab, Edward William Clark, killed himself. Then Clark’s brother started sperging out to his grieving parents about race war, and how Bowers’ act had been noble and justified — until they called the police on their own son.
If those were the kind of people on Gab, it seemed better to just start a new Twitter account every six months after being banned than to move over to that dumpster fire. Besides, all the people on Gab were already redpilled, so you weren’t going to win any new converts there. It seemed as though Gab’s only utility was as a quarantined playpen for the most antisocial spergs, thus keeping them out of our hair.
Gab is not quite so bad nowadays. First, more mainstream people have migrated there after being banned elsewhere, and they’ve brought over some of their bluepilled fans, so it’s no longer pointless to attempt outreach there. Second, Twitter has started cracking down on alt accounts more aggressively, causing some to bite the bullet and make Gab their main social media spot.
But for a while, Gab seemed to be a well-intentioned mess. There were tech problems, legal problems, and frequent fedposting. Torba’s heart was in the right place, but at times he seemed in way over his head. But surely, eventually someone with more money and technical acumen would come along. They’d be able to learn from Torba’s mistakes and do something similar, but better.
Fast-forward a few years and we have indeed seen some other attempts at building a Twitter alternative, and every day Gab looks better and better. For all its flaws, Gab’s saving grace is that it actually does what it claims: It says it is a free speech platform, and it is a free speech platform. Looking at these new “Right-wing Twitter alternatives,” none of them appear to have any intention of actually standing by free speech in any meaningful way.
You can buy Greg Johnson’s The Year America Died here.
You can forget about a new free speech platform coming from Donald Trump. Torba has recounted how Trump’s people reached out to him and said that Torba would have to change Gab’s terms of service to ban anti-Semitism if he wanted Trump to make Gab his new home base. Torba declined. It is also known that alt tech site Rumble changed its terms of service to ban anti-Semitism mere days before Trump’s endorsement of the site.
Trump has announced his own social media site, Truth Social, which is supposed to be launching in February, but given recent history, I think we all know what we can expect it to be like, and it is nothing to get one’s hopes up for.
The latest letdown comes in the form of Gettr, a new social media platform created by people formerly associated with the Trump administration: communications director Jason Miller and strategist Steve Bannon. It is being funded by a foreign national, Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui, a shady character who is in mountains of legal trouble on both sides of the Pacific Ocean. Wengui apparently has a big hate hard-on for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and I presume he believes Gettr can be a mouthpiece to wage his crusade.
Who knows? Perhaps someone from China, where they have no free speech, will have a greater appreciation of how precious free speech is, and will thus lead by example. I mean, how hypocritical would a guy have to be to criticize China for their censorship and yet not practice free speech on his own site?
Nonetheless, last month Gettr banned Nick Fuentes’ account without warning. In the weeks since, getting answers for why they did this has been like pulling teeth. First they claimed that Fuentes had violated their terms of service, which was bizarre considering that Fuentes insists that he had not even posted on the site; he had merely created an account. Even liberal outlets like The Daily Beast have been pointing out the hypocrisy.
Here’s Steve Bannon invoking the language of the left asking Jason Miller what Gettr is going go do about “hate speech.” Jason says they will ban it using AI and human mods……..just like Big Tech does. pic.twitter.com/AlCzvvBFQU
— Gab.com (@getongab) January 3, 2022
Gettr’s perspective was cleared up when Jason Miller appeared on Steve Bannon’s livestream show (note the Chinese subtitles).
Half a million people have reportedly signed-up to social media platform Gettr, including US podcast host Joe Rogan.
Gettr boss Jason Miller: “Come on and talk about your political beliefs and no one will send you to digital jail.”@TVKev | @JasonMillerinDC pic.twitter.com/e1tYHdz6vd
— talkRADIO (@talkRADIO) January 5, 2022
Bannon: You talk about people wanting to debate, but how are you going to avoid those enemies of the MAGA movement globally, the CCP but also here in the US? They are going to try to load up with hate speech and white supremacism and all that. How are you going to moderate that?
Miller: Yeah, and we’ve already seen a little bit of that yesterday (referring to a groyper raid). So we have both an AI component and a human moderation component.
That’s a real “four legs good, two legs better” moment. Anyone who says anything the liberal establishment doesn’t like on Twitter is a Russian bot, and now anyone who says anything the conservative establishment doesn’t like is a Chinese bot.
Half a million people have reportedly signed-up to social media platform Gettr, including US podcast host Joe Rogan.
Gettr boss Jason Miller: “Come on and talk about your political beliefs and no one will send you to digital jail.”@TVKev | @JasonMillerinDC pic.twitter.com/e1tYHdz6vd
— talkRADIO (@talkRADIO) January 5, 2022
In another livestream interview, Miller elaborated:
Host: So what is your kind of ethos for Gettr? Is it basically that as long as you don’t incite violence, you can pretty much say anything you want? That’s what freedom of speech is all about.
Miller: Well, I would say that our North Star, kind of our guiding message here is that Gettr is about free speech and it’s about opposing cancel culture. And if you believe in those two things, then you are the perfect person to have a Gettr account. But we do have moderation. That’s what separates us from the platforms that have been unsuccessful in the past, and what I mean by that is you have to have the ability to make sure people aren’t on there suggesting illegal activity.
Host: Of course.
Miller: Racial or religious epithets. But your political free speech and your ability to say what you think about these lockdowns, what you think about mandates, what you think about the regular issues coming up in your life, whether it be the migration issues in the UK where people come over in boats and such . . .
The story got even more absurd a short time later when Gettr banned the word “groyper” — not only so that you can’t have it in your screen name, but even if you try to make a post with the word “groyper” in it, which now will give you an error message. It’s therefore false to claim that they only censor in relation to racial slurs. Not only can you not be a groyper on Gettr, you can’t even talk about them — not even to say “groypers suck.”
Elijah Schaffer has done some good investigative reporting on this:
I am becoming suspicious of @GETTRofficial as I reached out to them regarding the banning (w/out explanation) of a prominent, controversial user. They said he violated their TOS but won’t respond to my inquiry of what in their TOS he violated or what post violated it. I reached out to the banned individual, Nicholas Fuentes, for comment. He said there was no specific post or reason given, just banned w/out explanation just like Twitter does. With financing being from China and similar banning practices to Twitter, I’m not convinced atm. My inquiry was extremely professional and predicated on the basis that the public deserves the right to know @GETTRofficial’s threshold for banning users. Largely in part due to their users joining to avoid the very censorship practices they appear to be implementing.
After some arm-twisting, Schaffer got Gettr to admit that they can, do, and will ban people for things they say and do offsite. Least surprising at all, they at last confessed that Gettr will not be allowing “recruiting for White Nationalist causes.”
Curiously, Schaffer claims that after he approached Gettr with these concerns, his own Gettr account was swiftly shadowbanned. After asking Gettr why they had shadowed banned him, Gettr claimed that they lost his account and had to give him a new one. There are some weird things going on there.
It is therefore clear that the Final Solution to the Free Speech Question will not come from the conservative establishment. I think it is also a sign that, now more than ever, the Dissident Right needs to throw its support behind Gab. A controlled opposition site like Gettr becoming the hegemonic Twitter alternative would make matters even worse for us than they are now.
Gab’s one big advantage over its emerging controlled opposition competitors is that we are already on Gab, and we are not going to be transferring over to these new ones. How much of an advantage that is for Gab is up to us.
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20 comments
Well for a start, Gab has a catchy name.
If someone actually pronounced ‘Getrr’ in my presence I think I would physically leave the conversation.
I’m with you. Things like that, right or wrong, ruin it for me, too.
There’s a chicken place (Cane’s, I believe it’s called) I stopped at one time, on the recommendation of a good friend. The menu had on it, I shit you not, a picture of Snoop Doggy Dog (sp?)! My reaction was visceral: “What have I gotten myself into?!” But sandwiched between two cars (and admittedly ravenous), I decided on something to order.
Shortly, a pleasant person, white like me, came on the intercom and asked, I quote: “What’s kickin’? Want some chicken?” I was so embarrassed I could feel myself practically imploding.
The chicken was great. It was. But I have not been back since, nor ever will, I vow. For me, things like that are just utter deal-breakers.
I wonder what happened to Parler. It seems one of these Con Inc “Twitter alternatives” is popping up once every few months.
Parler was built using Amazon Web Services (AWS) to implement much of its functionality. After Jan 6, Amazon shut them down as being in violation of their terms of service and Apple and Google removed the Parler app from their web stores. That pretty much put an end to Parler, although I think it still exists in some limited form.
Gab wasn’t built using AWS or any other services from Big Tech and is therefore not subject to this sort of treatment. You can be certain that any alternative platform built on top of services from Big Tech will be quickly deplatformed if they step out of line.
“You can be certain that any alternative platform built on top of services from Big Tech will be quickly deplatformed if they step out of line.”
Yes.
Because of this, we can tell which platforms will censor us. We don’t need to listen to their double-talk; we can look at how the platform is built.
Any platform that is not built the resilient way Gab is will censor us. The decision was made when the owners of the platform chose a design that meant that if the platform was told to do politically correct censorship, it would do so or be destroyed.
A silver lining to all of this is that people can not hide their true colors anymore. Those who remained true like Torba will be richly rewarded in the coming years, while the sell outs will be seething.
Well, that didn’t take long for yet another “twitter” alternative to spring up from the bowels of Con Inc. Do you think they put effort into these projects or just crap em out when necessary?
What happened to Parler?
The inability of the Conservative Inc., what with all the clout and resources at their disposal, to get anything past the first goal post illustrates just how ridiculous, mediocre, incompetent, low-info and uncommitted these people really are, even if we were to assume they had all the best intentions.
I know this sounds like a weak position to take, because on the whole, Conservatism Inc. is indeed controlled opposition. Nonetheless, I do think there is a difference in attitude and temperament between fire breathers like Tucker Carlson and ole Rush Limbaugh compared to low-T cucks like David French and, apparently, former Trump Administration officials like Steve Bannon and Jason Miller. In other words, I think the different actors within Conservatism Inc. are not necessarily a monolith. I often wonder whether some of them are, in fact, actors at all.
This whole Gettr saga is disappointing, and it shows how much work must still be done to purge and marginalize the cucks on the Right. But I don’t think we should lose focus of the fact that the political climate in Conservative and Republican Party circles has moved in our favor the last 5-7 years. White Nationalism remains the true North Star of Right Wing ideology and thought, whatever petty project Jason Miller and his Chinese billionaire buddy have in mind. All the energy on the Right comes from us, not from losers and cucks in the Trump Administration.
Gab is Great.
“Gab is great.”
I agree: “…now more than ever, the Dissident Right needs to throw its support behind Gab.”
I just learned a new word: spergy.
If you ask me, poa.st > Gab > Twitter >>>>>>>>> any Conservatism Inc. shithouse project
I would earnestly suggest any pro-White person go to poa.st because you’ll actually have productive conservations there. Borzoi, Sven, Myles Poland, Super Lutheran and Dharma King are already there delivering hot takes daily. “Redpilling the Normie” frequently ends in futility because people pursue power, and as of now, people who support White interests do not have institutional power or influence.
I never understood why poa.st wasn’t set up as a right wing BBS forum, the likes of the defunct Salo, MPC, 504um etc. That is basically what it is, only in the form of a twitter clone. Today’s social media focuses on users instead of subjects because it aims to acquire as broad a range of the former as possible, eschewing any limitative factors such as a community of interest between members.
This is obviously not the case for poa.st; so there’s no practical reason for its developers to abandon the clear advantages that a BBS format offers when it comes to hosting substantive topical discussions.
The only reason I can think of devs went for what they did is a sort of habituation — we got used to twitter, so let’s make our own! — or worse yet, thoughtless inertia — no one ever considered if the tweeter model really fits our particular needs.
It might be my age speaking, but I think it doesn’t. Not at all. I don’t care as much about Borzoi’s random thought of the day or the latest funny an anime avatar came up with as I do about new insights from all members with something to say on a particular topic.
Are there any active RW forums out there besides SF?
Tommy Robinson on Gettr ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO4AblXR6eg
Didn’t Steve Bannon whine on 60 minutes after he was ousted from the Trump Administration about how the “original sin” of the Administration was that, right from the beginning, it embraced the Establishment in order to form a government (to put bodies in positions)?
So now, in order to form a social media app to face off with lefty Twitter, they have to embrace Chinese funding, shadowbanning, and dispelling (what they deem as) “hate speech” from the platform? Basically becoming Twitter-lite.
It is therefore clear that the Final Solution to the Free Speech Question will not come from the conservative establishment. Correct! They use “free speech” as a campaign slogan like the left uses “cancel student debt.” They’re just empty words to keep the masses engaged with both Parties.
It’s also good to know that Gettr and Rumble, the cuckservative/neocon video site inflate their numbers by the use of bots, to astroturf popular support. Rumble even threatened to sue Odysee when the Odysee CEO pointed out the obvious bot use.
Saying “Gettr” just makes me think of saying “git r’ dun” but stopping before finishing the phrase out of sheer embarrassment. Maybe they did this on purpose for the rural blue collar flyover cred? Either way it sounds weird.
Andrew Torba, Gab:
“I was watching the interview with Tim Pool and the CEO of Rumble last night and it was really something. Tim pressed him on why their terms of service are exactly the same as Big Tech’s by banning things like “hate speech.” He correctly stated that Rumble is adopting the censorship langauge of the left.
The CEO of Rumble said that their terms of service are “legacy” from when they launched in 2013 (which is a lie because they added the hate speech rules on the day President Trump joined Rumble recently,) and mentioned three times that they have to ban “hate speech” in order to stay on the Apple and Google app stores.
So the reality is Rumble is a platform that is de facto owned and operated by Apple and Google. If you have the same Silicon Valley rules in order to play in the Silicon Valley sandbox, you are necessarily part of the Silicon Valley swamp.
These are problems Gab doesn’t have, because I have a backbone.”
I’ve been on Gab since 2017. Getting better and better every day. I encourage anyone who is not yet on Gab to join.
I got kicked off twatter about 6-7 times for posting facts about race and crime and finally gave up (save for the account I use for work).
The more I use it, the more I prefer Gab to twatter in terms of usability, look and feel.
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