From 4chan to Gab: Where hate speech is thriving online

Gab launched almost exactly a year ago with a definite ethos: Free speech at all cost.

That's proving to be an attractive proposition for far-right elements that are now flocking to the platform after being driven out of the internet's biggest shared spaces.

The Twitter-like service has received an influx of users—and money—in the past few weeks as internet companies have cracked down on hate speech following the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. It's just one of the places on the internet that are becoming a haven for far-right individuals and groups, as well as a growing population that sees Silicon Valley companies as abusing their positions of power.

Andrew Torba, a former ad tech founder who launched Gab, illustrated the hard line he feels has been abandoned.

"This is just another great example of the ideological echo chamber in Silicon Valley. You see all these companies one after another coming out with the same exact message, same exact stance. There’s nobody saying 'no, we stand for free speech. We hate some of the vile things that are said.' Either you support free speech or you do not. Period."

Torba is far from alone. Gab's fundraising efforts netted $500,000 in the past week (bringing its total to more than $1 million). In the last 30 days, Gab has had more than 25,000 sign-ups. The site currently has 225,000 users creating approximately 1.2 million posts (or "gabs") per month.

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Gab's success comes after tech giants including Google and Facebook, which in the past had been shy about policing hate speech, began to forbid white supremacists from using their services in the wake of the violent events in Charlottesville, Virginia last weekend.

Even Cloudflare, a hosting company that had to take a public stance in favor of free speech even if it meant its services were open to extreme views, stopped working with the Daily Stormer, a white supremacist website.

After that, Daily Stormer founder Andrew Anglin said—on Gab—that he was "Gab 100%."

Tech's growing comfort with cracking down on hate speech, Torba said, is a "slippery slope." He spoke passionately against censorship when asked about his reaction to Spotify and other music-streaming services pulling music by white supremacist bands.

He also pointed to the firing of James Damore, the Google engineer whose manifesto went viral, as having driven people to Gab.

"Are we going to start burning books next? Because this is really the internet, the 21st century equivalent, of banning and burning books," Torba said.

Gab isn't the only website that has received an influx of users who feel alienated by the mainstream internet. There's WeSearchr, which has become a destination for crowdfunding far-right causes. Websites 4chan and 8chan grew in popularity after Reddit began to crack down on hate groups.

A digital platform expert, who requested anonymity due to fear of being doxxed, noted that 4chan and 8chan now host some of the most vile speech on the internet.

"Since it's anonymous, they've always said hateful stuff but they've taken up under the banner of Trump to make peoples' lives a living hell on Reddit," the expert said. "There's a specific board called /pol/ that harbors a lot of people who just spew most of the racist, hate speech that you see today."

There's also a business consideration. Many tech companies are feeling the public pressure of ensuring that users feel safe. To this end, most have adopted terms of service that provide some rules. Apple rejected the Gab app from its App Store several times earlier this year.

"Your app includes content that could be considered defamatory or mean-spirited," Apple's App Store Review team said in an email posted on Medium by Gab. "We found references to religion, race, gender, sexual orientation, or other targeted groups that could be offensive to many users."

Apple's CEO Tim Cook has also begun to speak publicly about the responsibility that companies have to balance free speech and company values.

“This is a responsibility that Apple takes very seriously. First we defend, we work to defend these freedoms by enabling people around the world to speak up. And second, we do it by speaking up ourselves. Because companies can, and should have values," Cook said when accepting the Free Expression Award at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., in April.

Despite its commitment to free speech at all costs, Gab still has rules. Torba said doxxing (sharing or posting confidential information about users) has always been forbidden. The site does not allow illegal activity. When asked for examples, Torba noted death threats to the president of the United States.

"We have members of the alt-left making death threats to the president of the United States. It's not only against our guidelines but against the law," Torba said.

With $1 million in crowdfunding, Torba said he will be hiring more engineers to build out its live-streaming service (GabTV) and an Android app.

The service is ad-free and is relying on crowdfunding and subscriptions for revenue. GabPro offers verification, save posts, lists, private group chats, other insights, and soon, live video.

There's more yet to come.On Wednesday, Apple Pay and PayPal pulled its services from sites selling white supremacy and Nazi products, BuzzFeed reported.

"First they banned them, censoring them, whatever," Torba said. "Now they, Silicon Valley, is transitioning by attacking creators by going after their sources of income."

So, of course, Gab is launching a virtual currency.

Update, Thursday August 17, 7 p.m. ET:

Gab said Google has removed its Android app from the Play store.

"This is war," a spokesperson said in a tweet.

Google didn't immediately respond to our request for comment.

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