Gab.com, the social network favoring free speech, says traffic has increased by more than 750 percent in the past few days, following President Donald Trump’s black list of most conventional technology platforms.
“Our traffic has increased by 753% in the past 24 hours. Tens of millions of visits, ”said Gab in response to a question about slow loading speeds.
The free speech network announced that it would bring ten new servers online to deal with the increased volume of traffic.
Gab was the first free speech alternative to Twitter. It takes a hard line on freedom of expression, allowing for all legal content except pornography. Users can control their own experience on the platform by creating custom word blocks and filters.
Gab takes an equally tough stance on illegal content and threats of violence, encouraging users to proactively report that content for removal.
Despite this longstanding policy, both Apple and Google, for years, banned the Gab app from their app stores, a destination that has also befallen Parler.
We have tens of thousands of volunteer users who monitor the site for threats and illegal activities. They forward it to us and, if necessary, we forward it to the authorities. Our moderation is decentralized through Gab groups, which are moderated by the users themselves.
– Gab.com (@getongab) January 9, 2021
Launched in May 2017, Gab faced attempts to censor and suppress various sectors, leading to innovative approaches to circumvent it.
To avoid censorship by cloud hosting companies, Gab maintains its own physical servers. Gab is also developing the Gab phone to bypass app store censorship.
Meet the Gab Phone.
Yes it’s real.
We’re running @GrapheneOS on a Pixel 4a.
It’s Android without everything and with anything from Google, with additional security and privacy features. pic.twitter.com/FuSBjlNMLI
– Gab.com (@getongab) January 10, 2021
Gab also developed Dissenter, a browser extension that adds a comment section to all Internet sites. When major browsers like Chrome and Mozilla Firefox banned the extension, Gab launched its own browser, also called Dissenter.
In response to the increase in traffic, Gab founder and CEO Andrew Torba made a concise comment to Breitbart News:
“Checkmate, Silicon Valley.”
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent for Breitbart News. His new book, #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election, which contains exclusive interviews with sources within Google, Facebook and other technology companies, is currently available for purchase.