After the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Protest at the United States Capitol sent Gab CEO Andrew Torba a shockingly authoritarian and dystopian letter, Torba released a statement clarifying that Gab is looking forward to “getting in touch with the Committee in the coming weeks especially given the recent news that the FBI has found “scant evidence that the Jan. 6 event at the U.S. Capitol was the result of an organized plot to overturn the presidential election result” according to current and former law enforcement officials.
Andrew Torba, the CEO of the popular free speech social media platform Gab, has responded to a shockingly authoritarian letter that was sent to him by the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Protest at the United States Capitol, requesting an immense amount of information on the platforms users. In the statement, Torba revealed the letter for Americans to read for themselves. “By way of further background about our company, Gab exists to promote freedom of speech, by which we mean all speech which is protected speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. No more, no less,” wrote Torba.
Accordingly we have a zero-tolerance policy towards threats of violence and unlawful speech. As to controversial but nonetheless legal speech we believe, as Justice Brandeis did, that “sunlight is the best disinfectant, electric light the most efficient policeman.”
We have been boycotted by virtually every company in Silicon Valley because of our adherence to this moderation policy. In their zeal to bend to “woke” political agendas or outside pressure groups, our contemporaries in the Valley forget the social importance of letting off steam and of exposing bad ideas, and bad people, to public scrutiny.
Torba noted that “as we are a free to use online publishing platform, it is inevitable that criminal actors will seek to abuse our services, as indeed they abuse all online services. We work hard to ensure that our services are denied to these bad actors.”
Torba highlighted an example of denying services to bad actors, in which a number of accounts were caught “spreading division and fear though the use of unlawful threats” leading up to the 2021 Inauguration. However, he noted further that such accounts were banned upon their discovery. Torba pointed out that the mainstream media falsely reported that Gab did not take action to remove the account.
At the end of the statement, Torba declared that Gab is looking forward to getting in touch with the Committee given recent news that the FBI found “scant evidence that the Jan. 6 event at the U.S. Capitol was the result of an organized plot to overturn the presidential election result, according to four current and former law enforcement officials.”
“We anticipate that responding to this letter will cost a significant amount of money for legal expenses. If you would like to help us cover these costs we would appreciate you making a donation or upgrading to GabPRO to support us,” said Torba.