Gab, which is a Twitter-like app designed to ensure “free speech,” recently, announced that its Coinbase profile is banned without any specifics. Sharing screenshots of the platform’s message regarding the ban, Gab called centralized exchanges “cancer” and contradictory to everything that cryptocurrencies stand for. Coinbase has not made a public statement yet regarding the ban.
Gab Founder Infuriated With the Ban
Launched by CEO Andrew Torba in August 2016, the platform is a Twitter clone that claims to be a space “where people, free expression, and individual liberty come first.”
The launch was inspired by a news report which claimed that Facebook employees suppress conservative articles. Though it is a very young network, Gab has been accused of being an alt-right and white supremacist supportive space.
The CEO announced the news of the ban on Twitter. Torba called out Coinbase and spoke against centralized digital currency exchanges. He vehemently opposed the censorship that his platform has received.
However, the tweet received mixed reactions. Gab users did not like the news while some experts suggested that the ban could be because of the network’s opposition of “crony capitalism.”
A Short but Eventful History
Torba said that major social networks like Twitter and Facebook are “the entirely left-leaning Big Social monopoly.” He has taken his opposition to court, fighting a legal battle to secure a legal fund that accepts donations through PayPal, Bitcoin, and Ethereum. The fund will work to explore legal options against the “Silicon Valley Oligopoly.”
The website reflected the same sentiment where it speaks against online censorship suggesting that “censorship does not create value, it annihilates it.”
The website accepts Bitcoin and even launched its own coin called Gab Token in an ICO that raised over $5 million and is planning to raise another $10 million.
Gab is commonly known as “extremist friendly.” Torba was, previously, kicked out of the Y Combinator program for “speaking in a threatening, harassing way toward other YC founders.”
He is an outspoken Trump supporter as well and earlier noted that Twitter had banned the platform from advertising.
From his new fundraising round, Torba is planning to “buy ads in San Francisco just to troll Big Tech,” and bring “red-pilled’ content creator on the platform. The term is used for extremely conservative right-wingers with anti-feminist views.
