Ray Bradbury once said “There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.” If you know anything about the social media industry, or "Big Social", you'll know that Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg are two such people, with Facebook and Twitter serving as both the book and the match. This isn't surprising, considering that Silicon Valley employs their own specific bias. From the ashes of the banned speech comes the platform Gab. This week, I was lucky enough to speak with Gab creator, founder, and CEO Mr. Andrew Torba to discuss his platform, his inspirations, and the current state of social networking.
Q: What is Gab’s backstory? What inspired you to create Gab?
T: Prior to Gab I co-founded an ad tech company called Automate Ads. We worked with and built on top of the three Big Social ecosystems of Facebook, Twitter, and Google in Silicon Valley. I was also in Y Combinator’s Winter 2015 batch. After moving to Silicon Valley and working closely with these companies for five years, I got to see the dirty underbelly of how they operate. For years I knew that progressive agendas were being pushed and conservative voices were slowly being shut up. When news broke of the Facebook Trending Topics team member admitting to it at scale, I knew something needed to be done. Shortly after I resigned as CEO from Automate Ads, passing control of the business to my co-founder, and started Gab.
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Q: What is your company philosophy/mission statement?
Gab's mission is to put people and free speech first. We believe that the only valid form of censorship is a user’s individual choice to opt-out of seeing certain content they don’t want to see. Gab is for everyone. All are welcome on Gab and always will be.
About how big is Gab’s user base right now, and what are your expectations for growth in the next year?
Currently Gab has 50,000 monthly active users from around the world in less than 90 days of being in beta. We have 110,000 people on our waitlist and are sending out thousands of invites every week. We expect this rapid growth to continue and to have millions of users by this time next year.
How is the app coming along?
The app is coming along great; we are currently beta testing it with our donors and have received great feedback. There are many reasons we started with a web product before mobile. For one, we didn’t want to be under the thumb of Apple and Google. Secondly, the web is infinitely more scalable as it works across every device instantly. Finally, web links can be shared and indexed; an advantage that mobile-only social networks like Snapchat do not have.
What can Gab offer its users that other social networks can’t? In what ways is your platform different from others, and in what ways will it be familiar to your users?
Gab enables users to share short, 300 character “Gabs.” Users can upvote or downvote Gabs, use hashtags to discover content and start trends, and mention other “Gabbers” to start conversations. Users can also edit Gabs and have edits stored in a change log viewable by everyone. Unlike Big Social, we aren’t going to curate and decide what is “news” and what isn’t. What you see is what you get. As a user, you control your experience on Gab. We offer feed filtering options that we call #SeeNoEvil. With this feature, users can mute words, phrases, hashtags, and users that they do not want to see in their feed. For example, if you’re not a big sports fan you can add different sports-related words and terms.
How is your company funded?
Gab is a family owned and operated business. To date Gab has been completely self-funded by myself and through generous donations from the community. We didn’t want to take traditional path of most startups by raising millions of dollars from venture capitalists who didn’t share our vision for protecting and promoting free speech and expression online. We also have big plans to put people first in the financing process for the first time ever.
Has Milo joined Gab yet? (this one is, admittedly, more for me) Who are some notable figures currently using the platform? Do you have any favorite Gab accounts?
Yes Milo is on Gab as @m . We also have many of the top conservative names on Gab like Michelle Malkin, Mike Cernovich, and Paul Joseph Watson. We’ve been attracting many conservatives due to the fact that they are the ones being censored by Big Social, although we welcome anyone who wants to join. I don’t personally have any favorites, what I’ve found is some of the best content comes from anonymous users who finally have the freedom to speak freely.
Twitter has had a problem with radical Islamists (as well as other extremists, but let’s talk about the growing threat of radical Islam) who use the social network as a means of recruiting and reaching a young, educated, Western audience. Do you/your team have a plan to combat such use of your platform?
We have a zero tolerance policy for violence and terrorism. Users are not allowed to make threats of, or promote, violence of any kind or promote terrorist organizations or agendas. Such users will be instantly removed and the owning account will be dealt with appropriately per the advice of our legal counsel. We may also report the user to local and/or federal law enforcement per the advice of our legal counsel. Another way we are combating this is by having an invite-only community. This prevents tens of thousands of extremist accounts from signing up at once with the share of a link.
Facebook and Twitter have both been criticized for using algorithms which manipulate trending topics to fit a Social Justice agenda. How does Gab suggest content to users? How will that change as Gab grows?
Gab has upvotes and downvotes, which allow the users to weigh in on what is good content and what isn’t. These votes help surface content on our “Popular” page. What many people forget is that algorithms can have
Many social networks follow protocols to combat issues of perceived bullying, harassment, abuse, etc. Does Gab have such protocols in place? If so, what are they? If not, what made you decide not to do so?
Gab’s feed filter features put users in control of their experience. If they don’t want to see content that can be perceived as “harassment” or “abuse” they can mute those individuals, words, or phrases. One of the ways we’ve innovated here is with our spam folder. When you mute a user who is “harassing” you, any of their engagement with you is sent to a spam folder in your notifications. Similar to the spam folder in your inbox, it’s something you have access
Do you have to work at being savage on Twitter, or does it come naturally to you?
When you’re telling the Truth and being authentic, being savage comes easy.
Have you personally invited anyone to Gab? Who, and why?
Of course, I’ve sent out tens of thousands of invites personally and make an effort to reach out to individual users on other platforms who are looking to join. I don’t look at follower count or for some celebrity. Every voice matters and deserves to speak freely.
Where can I get a Gab T shirt to match my MAGA hat?
http://www.redbubble.com/people/gabai/works/229986...
As Twitter continues to flounder, we'll keep an eye on Gab's growth as a free-speech alternative. Whether you're a democrat, a republican, neither, or even apolitical, Gab seems to be a community that welcomes all users from all walks of life. Let's keep an eye on Andrew Torba--I'm sure he'll do great things for the Social Media industry.
