Big Technology
‘Free Speech’ Platforms Are Emerging as Facebook and Twitter Suspend Trump
What happens when those spurned by Facebook and Twitter migrate elsewhere?
Four years ago, startup founder Andrew Torba emailed me about a social network he was building, one that offered users near-absolute free speech. A pro-Trump conservative, Torba saw an opening for his venture after Twitter started removing people for harassment. Wary of moderation, he created an alternative.
“What makes the entirely left-leaning Big Social monopoly qualified to tell us what is ‘news’ and what is ‘trending’ and to define what ‘harassment’ means?” he told me. “It didn’t feel right to me, and I wanted to change it.”
Torba’s network, Gab, debuted a few months ahead of Trump’s 2016 election. Soon after, it grew into an established hangout for right-wing types online. Gab, by its nature, attracted some people with views too extreme for mainstream networks. Before killing 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, Robert Bowers, the shooter, posted about it on Gab. The incident inspired little change.
Aside from reminders that people like Bowers were using Gab, the service was easy — though unwise — to ignore. It wasn’t the main show, Trump…
