Gab provides an online home for far-right groups and their supporters
Andrew Torba, the founder of Gab, has described his social media platform as an incubator for a “parallel Christian economy.” The company provides digital services to far-right extremist groups and their supporters, including perpetrators of terroristic violence, many of whom have been banned from mainstream social media sites and payment processors. While still a fringe site, Gab has sought to make inroads with right-wing lawmakers and aspiring lawmakers.
Key Takeaways
- In the run-up to the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, in which pro-Trump rioters attacked the U.S. Capitol building, Torba used his own platform to promote election denial and encouraged other Gab users to travel to Washington, D.C. In a post on the day of the riot, Torba wrote on Gab, “In a system with rigged elections there are no longer any viable political solutions.”
- Despite the site’s prohibition on promoting terrorism, Gab users have included the perpetrator of the deadliest antisemitic attack on U.S. soil; groups designated as terrorist in Europe, Canada and elsewhere; and multiple men charged over violent threats that they issued on the platform.
- Torba has actively collaborated with multiple white nationalists, conspiracy theorists and male supremacists. In 2022, he spoke at the annual America First Political Action Conference that Nick Fuentes, a pro-Hitler livestreamer, hosts. Torba has called Fuentes “a Civil Rights Hero of our time.” After hackers exposed data about the site’s 4.1 million users in 2022, multiple news outlets reported on Torba’s messages with a prominent QAnon propagandist and other extremists.
- Republican lawmakers and aspiring lawmakers have supported Gab. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, paid over $37,000 to Gab for digital marketing between 2021 and 2022. Doug Mastriano, who unsuccessfully ran for governor of Pennsylvania in 2022, paid Gab $5,000 for consulting services.
Read the full Gab Extremist File here.
Image at top: Photo illustration by the SPLC; screenshot of Andrew Torba from YouTube.