Talk:Gab (social network)

GAB user numbers

It says that GAB has 215,000 users on this page, I've found an article claiming 225,000 from August 18 http://fortune.com/2017/08/18/uncensored-social-network-gab-raises-1-million-in-crowdfunding-campaign/. Is there any way of finding out what the numbers are today? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.104.16.91 (talk) 04:02, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Mr Torba has posted today that Gab has close to 650,000 users, I can only link his account rather than the actual comment, my ineptitude to blame no doubt. It seems that it's time to update the numbers once more if someone less useless than I would be so kind. Tapirium (talk) 02:06, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

As of late October, the membership count was about 800,000 users, just before the synagogue shooter incident and the co-ordinated attack by BigTech to shut down an entire city because of the actions of a single citizen -- actions that were DENOUNCED by Andrew and virtually every other citizen of the Gab city. Think about that -- nobody called for the same shut down of Twitter or Facebook BOTH of which this shooter had an account. 142.229.115.111 (talk) 18:36, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Keep in mind your problem is not with Wikipedia. If the "reliable sources" (meaning the mass media) fail to publish something you think is important, then there's nothing for a Wikipedia Editor to use. However, it should not be difficult to find a reliable source that reported Gab's Membership, and coincidentally while reading the "Reception" section of the Article, I was just thinking that including that number might add some balance.Tym Whittier (talk) 00:59, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

"Alt Right"

I must strongly object to the term 'alt right' as a collective name for the internet critics of the political status quo. Alt right is a name that was given by others to what is a very wide range of critics, encompassing republicans, libertarians, conservatives, patriots, even liberals who are true to real liberalism, and a host of other individuals and groups. To coin them 'alt right' is a way of delegitimizing the "populist" movement that is gaining support.

"Other alt-right and conservative media personalities, including ......" is a false statement, as most of these people have denounced the name 'alt right' and what it stands for.

I understand that it is hard for Wikipedia editors to categorize this very varied group of critical thinkers and content creators, but to use the term 'alt right' as a collective name is taking a political stand, not objective and therefor is contrary to the neutral standpoint Wikipedia should take. At least a citation is needed as to who coined and who now uses the term 'alt right' and question it's legitimicy Ayo (talk) 09:19, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia uses reliable sources, not personal experience or original research. Wikipedia likewise isn't a platform for public relations or advertising. The reliable sources used in this article which I've seen don't really consider Gab to be varied, nor do they describe the site's users as "critical thinkers". The article includes many citations regarding Gab (and alt-right includes many citations about that term's history). Wikipedia's neutral standpoint means we don't whitewash content merely because users of a particular business might be offended by how reliable analysts describe their behavior. Grayfell (talk) 09:36, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

"Alt-right" is not a term given by others to a "wide range of critics". "Alt-right" is a term created by those in the alt-right and is term promoted by those identifying with the alt-right. Some people in the alt-lite wing of the alt-right have tried to distance themselves from the more open white nationalists in the alt-right, but they embraced the term before the events at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, NC in 2017. They embraced alt-right politics and still do. Benjamin5152414 (talk) 02:45, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Aditionaly while most of the page correctly points out that the site is considered alt right by most people, the initial description falsely claims it is an alt right website. Weather alt right people do or do not use the site is irrelevant as the site itself is not inherently alt right in nature and there is no relevant information in any of the four articles used as evidence. Please remove the claim or replace it with a more correctly worded option indicating it is commonly used by alt right or is considered alt right as that is the only thing the citations indicate. -Hyperionofakad — Preceding unsigned comment added by HyperionofAkad (talk • contribs) 04:15, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

The label "alt-right" is defamatory, this article begins by revealing how it lacks neutrality with barely four words into it. Gab.ai is a free speech platform, on it you will find alt-right, leftists, and moderates. Par for the course with sjw moderated wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xtofury (talk • contribs) 17:22, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

I take issue with user:Grayfell's claim that Wikipedia prefers reliable source over personal experience or self-research, at least in some cases. It is not always wise to accept 3rd party reports created by persons with little or no first-hand experience of a social medium at face value (sometimes by persons allegedly with their own bias) over what is obvious by looking at a site with one's own eyes. Doing so only feeds into the conservative theme of Main Stream Media liberal bias. For two years I have personally followed Gab with a sometimes detached, sometimes more intense, interest due to it's free speech advocacy. I have not read or seen anywhere that Gab (or Andrew Torba) advocates or enables violence or encourages incitement to bias. In fact quite the opposite, I have seen pleas for users to create topics on various topics such as gardening! It seems obvious to anyone who thinks about it for a moment that if Twitter really does have a liberal bias (not saying it does, just rhetorical supposition), then it would seem natural that liberal users would tend to stay there because they feel comfortable and unthreatened whereas conservatives would be forced off the platform by shadowbanning, or outright deplatforming (such as happened to the likes of Milo Yiannopolous and Alex Jones). The fact that these personalities sometimes become popular on Gab is not necessarily a goal of Gab but a side effect of free speech. If they were on Twitter they would have large followings there, which they did and for which they were deplatformed. Not everyone that follows them is an admirer by the way. Free speech is not about sheltering people from different ideas but about exposing them to new ideas. The best ideas win. It's a messy process, and fraught with some danger, but what is the alternative? Censorship? On Gab it is easy to mute any user who spouts foolishness. So treating Gab like it is some kind of news media source endorsing each and every member post is ludicrously absurd and a double standard. Even Twitter and FB don't go that far.

Thought experiment: How would Gab conduct its social media service differently to address liberal criticism without sacrificing freedom of speech? Has it come to the point that Americans want the what Russia and China already have? Censorship? Freedom from exposure to alternative viewpoints, even incorrect ones?

Our founding fathers foresaw the importance of free speech, they failed to foresee the powerful role high tech social media would play in mediating that free speech via a relative monopoly (a pserson cannot just go out and start their own internet, although something close to that may eventually become necessary to preserve free speech).

All this is simply a way of shedding light on a different perspective of the topic which apparently is invisible to many of the current editors but highly relevant to the battle of ideas and phrases. DellAnderson (talk) 19:34, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Oh! Gardening! Just because someone buys groceries doesn't alleviate their positions. "not necessarily a goal of Gab but a side effect of free speech" This is pure WP:OR. If you have no published, reliable, secondary sources to back this, there is no place for it on Wikipedia. Free speech does not mean someone can just spew their racist rant without taking consequences. The reports on Arxiv are quantitative study backed by data of real gab posts, and that's what we're going to use.

Plus, Andrew Torba has a history in promoting violence against journalists, even stating that he will raise his children to hate journalists. He's quite efficient in deleting his old, dirty posts. Tsumikiria (T/C) 20:04, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Tsumikiria, if Torba stated that he will raise his children to hate journalists (assuming it's even true), that's perfectly acceptable as opposed to raising his children to harm journalists. You can't seriously suggest to me that was an act of promoting violence there. All the citation references next to this "alt-right" label is ridiculous, in so far as it's references to legacy media whom all have their own agendas to push and none of them are about what is factual. Yes, it is true that as a side-effect of free speech, you will have undesirable opinions coming to light and yes, sadly, there have been a large number of neo-Nazis and the like taking part there. Whether you like it or not, they do still have a voice and the beauty of everyone having a voice is that we can denounce them. The studies you refer to are not quantitative in that they do not truly quantify every single conversation, let alone a reasonable sample, to demonstrate that Gab is by and large a haven for the alt-right. It was designed for EVERYONE and not just those in the same echo chamber. For example, Twitter doesn't even allow a robust conversation about sexism (and the hypocrisy of some), and somehow that's an acceptable form of censorship for you? No. Censorship is an "all or nothing" deal. What you ask for is going to affect you some day as well. Instead of focusing on politics, feelings and some delusion of achieving a Utopia, think about what you're doing to your own future, even if you don't care for the rest of us. Going against the minority grain does not make one alt-right and the studies you refer to do not come from anyone with a neutral view. By perpetuating the unfounded lie about Gab being "alt-right," you damage the integrity of Wikipedia. Stick to the cold, hard facts. Leave the labels out of it. They serve no other purpose than to create further resentment and division. Gab isn't the problem. Gab is a product of the failures of Silicon Valley and its followers such as yourself, whom have created the monsters that bring harm to innocent lives, such as the recent shooting. Starclassic (talk) 21:10, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Unfounded lie? When Gab's most followed individuals are almost entirely comprised of alt-right figureheads and Neo-Nazi fascists (https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.05287), it would be impossible that a mere minority of users promoted these individuals to most influential status on Gab. Supported by far too may evidence, Gab is, a de facto platform for alt-right discourse. After all, are there any mainstream celebrity, writer, actor, creator on Gab? I haven't seen any. Just persons like Milo Yiannopoulos and Mike Cernovich.

Oh you blame me for the shooting? When did I say I endorse them? Good job constructing a straw man, and congrats that this is your 5th ever edit on Wikipedia. Tsumikiria (T/C) 21:26, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Let's tone it down a little, no one on wikipedia's responsible for the shooting. Tsumikiria, from what I can tell the paper you cite wasn't published in a recognized journal or cited by other academics. Am I wrong? D.Creish (talk) 21:35, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Although not published on a journal, this paper is cited by 7 other papers. See here. I'm still reading through them. I'll update my proposal later. Thank you. Tsumikiria (T/C) 21:53, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

"Free speech does not mean someone can just spew their racist rant without taking consequences." So how is it that Twitter continues to allow Louis Farakhan a platform without critique? What should be the consequences for racism? If so, there are plenty of racists against whites on Twitter. As for your claim that my statements regarding Gab are pure WP:OR, I understand what you think you mean, but it is not relevant to a published easily available online source such as Gab. A moderator and I agreed that Gab could be a source for Gab. So shall we cite Gab.com as my reference? Arxiv (presumably this reference: https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.05287 ) is not a WP:RS for one simple reason: There is no accepted generally agreed upon definition of hate speech (unless you count such ambiguous definitions as https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hate%20speech which even includes any words that might 'offend' someone), therefore any results of that study are by definition biased. As for Andrew Torba promoting violence against journalists, that sounds like libel against a living person unless you have a published, reliable, secondary source to back your claims. DellAnderson 20:23, 29 October 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by DellAnderson (talk • contribs) 20:23, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Just saw this reference. Is New York Times up to WP:RS standards? Any reason NYT's considers Torba's statement against violence post Synagogue shooting yet moderator/editors here don't? https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/28/us/gab-robert-bowers-pittsburgh-synagogue-shootings.html DellAndersonDellAnderson (talk) 20:41, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

What Twitter does is irrelevant for the sake of the article. "Without critique" is clearly false. Twitter users certainly don't downvote critics of him to oblivion, unlike what might happen on Gab to a critic of alt-right. Remember how Gab users drove women off their site? "racism against white on Twitter" This is only preceived, with no concrete evidence. Plus your experience and concept of racism may be far limited.

Research papers of a quantitative study isn't a WP:RS simply because you think hate speech is an ambiguous concept? Oh the Evolution is a complete hoax because someone thinks cell division is an "ambiguous definiton". You're falsifying quote from M-W. "speech expressing hatred" also from Dictionary.com: "speech that attacks, threatens, or insults a person or group on the basis of national origin, ethnicity, color, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability."

For Torbas's posts. Here is the source: 1 2 3

Tsumikiria (T/C) 21:03, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

I think the methods used to attempt to quantify speech in terms of some quality called "hate" is ambiguous at best, with the additional belief that it's existance is nothing more than a pretext for fragile and angry people to find political/social consensus. It gives them power. It's real and insidious purpose is to give one ideology (Marxism) the power to control the speech of another competing ideology (Freedom), and their ability to associate. I've already described, in another Section, how the method to evaluate the Gab communities' "hate speech percentage" was bogus, which you've ignored, possibly because you know that it's bogus, but it serves your ends. My concern is that Wikipedia blindly adopts and submits to the ADL/SPLC's methods of evaluating which speech is deemed politically correct and acceptable, and which speech is "hate" and requires authoritarian censorship, and applies those bogus standards to this, and other, Wikipedia Articles, in direct contradiction to it's "not censored" policy. The current version of this Article is riddled with this politically biased and pseudo-scientific method of ideological speech control, and my posts calling attention to continue to be ignored. However, having said that, I do enjoy reading your perspectives, and hope that they continue.Tym Whittier (talk) 10:07, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for translating "ayy hate speech is such an overrated term used by communist snowflakes to totally destroy American freedom" into intricate words. None of what you said is backed by anything other than some fringe conspiracy theory. What IS your ideal definition of hate speech then? Seeing you so vehemently oppose ADL/SPLC, it really rings some bell in my head that I've seen this rhetoric in some alt-right conspiracy theories that jews control the ADL/SPLC for their agenda etc etc.. If you disagree on the basic definitions, it might be more helpful to file your complaints on Talk:Hate speech then. Wikipedia is not some place where you argue to death for your truth(WP:TRUTH), rather it go by what reliable sources say, leaving judgements to readers. This article simply states these percentages and the paper's author's methods and conclusions in plain, without giving extra conclusions. If your think their method of using hatebase is bogus pseudoscience, why not challenge them in your own study instead?

Secondly, Marxism simply means class struggle is an eternal force in society and workers should own and manage their own workplace. Don't confuse it with some genocidal tyranncal dictators. The videos of Dr. Richard D. Wolff, professor emeritus in economics is a good start. Please read your book. Tsumikiria (T/C) 01:34, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

You've ignored my primary point, which relates directly to the Article. I'll restate it for you:

My concern is that Wikipedia blindly adopts and submits to the ADL/SPLC's methods of evaluating which speech is deemed politically correct and acceptable, and which speech is "hate" and requires authoritarian censorship, and applies those bogus standards to this, and other, Wikipedia Articles, in direct contradiction to it's "not censored" policy.

I would also argue that demonizing a social media website as "hateful" using the goofy pseudoscentific metrics of a politically biased non-profit organization is a form of censorship, using "scare tactics" to delegitimize the organization based on the alleged actions of a small minority. No one does this with Islam.Tym Whittier (talk) 00:29, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Bias against the company

This page is an entire insult to it. Half the sources have been handpicked with an obvious bias that plays around reality, all they do is try to smear the site by smearing its users. People from all walks of life are on gag, but that doesn't matter to the obvious snakes and liars who have molded this page.

Someone please correct this injustice. 154.124.163.118 (talk) 09:52, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Ginjuice4445 (talk) 23:14, 23 October 2018 (UTC) I concur. This article is very one-sided; recent edits I made in order to bring it back to WP:NPOV were immediately reverted to ones that were wholly critical of Gab the company. There are obviously hundreds of thousands of Gab users who are not all evil; if the critiques are going to be in this article, WP:NPOV requires that so should be the free speech angle that the company has consistently stated in all of its public statements, which directly contradict the "alt-right" narrative, as well as many of its users, the vast majority of whom appear not to be "alt-right." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ginjuice4445 (talk • contribs) 23:14, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

There were many problems with your edits, and the raw quantity of citations was not the main problem.

Your edits contained excessive editorializing and selective use of sources used as citations for opinions not directly supported by those sources. This is WP:SYNTH, which is not allowed on Wikipedia. Further, many of those sources were questionable reliability. The use of a controversial opinion would have to be clearly attributed in the article before being crammed into the lede. Additionally, Wikipedia is not interested in "both sides" style false balance. If reliable sources say that this site is primarily known for it's far-right userbase, than the article will also reflect this. Hunting around for sources which might tangentially mention other users is cherry-picking. Discuss changes here before restoring this content. Grayfell (talk) 00:20, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Let's do this statement by statement:

"Gab is known for its moderation policy, which differs from comparable services such as Twitter and Facebook in that "as long as... speech is protected by the First Amendment and is lawful it remains"... this is obviously true, and extremely relevant. Literally the only reason anybody knows about Gab is this moderation policy. Everything discussed in this article, alt-right or otherwise, is a consequence of that moderation policy. The fact that people are able to call it an "alt-right" platform is because the policy exists which allows users to exercise first amendment rights in a manner that is not permitted on other platforms like Twitter or Facebook. The fact that Gab is continually censored by companies like Apple or Google which do not share that policy is newsworthy and cited throughout. I offered a Yahoo News article in direct support of this statement. You say it's "cherry picking," but it in fact summarizes why we are all here.

"with proponents describing Gab as a bastion of free speech among increasingly censorial competitor platforms"... I fail to understand how including this viewpoint violates neutrality or detracts from the discussion. The entire point of the Gab website, the very fact that it is relevant, is derived from the fact that it has positioned itself as an alternative to "Big Tech" and the moderation that "Big Tech" companies employ. Furthermore, I provided cites from the Washington Times, Verge, and Quillette in support of this proposition. If you wish, we can split out the gab-specific articles from the articles pointing out that Big Tech censorship is taking place, but all that requires is a little additional drafting for that sentence rather than a blanket undo for the entire edit.

"detractors saying it is an alt-right website"... your language currently states that "Gab has been described as an alt-right website." Not by everyone, not uniformly, not even as a consensus position. By detractors of the company, as a read of any of those links will show. Other sources praise the company or take a neutral point of view, such as a number of the references I have cited to. You can't just ignore those on the grounds that it's a "false balance." That assumes the viewpoint you propose is the only reasonable viewpoint out there, which it clearly isn't.

"Although prominent right-wing voices were among some of the site's earliest users, Gab claims that it seeks a diverse userbase" ... both true statements, which are relevant to understanding why the site's free speech bent attracted alt-righters and also directly contradicting the article's current content that the site "has been described as a site for the alt-right." The site has literally disclaimed its status as an alt-right platform and I can find no evidence of the site embracing that categorization. The only people who call the site a haven of the alt-right are people who dislike that the site permits the alt-right to operate on it, as a read of your sources shows. But Gab itself has done and said nothing to indicate that the alt-right is its intended clientele. If you're going to include the allegation you have to include the denial - this is like writing that a certain SCOTUS nominee committed an assault on his Wikipedia entry, simply because he was accused of it.

tl;dr, the "Gab is for the altright" is a disputed point. It's a label given by people to Gab who would prefer Gab kicked the alt-right off of its site rather than allowing anyone to operate on it. It is a point of view not shared, presumably, by the half-million users who use Gab or the folks who have written the articles that describe it as a free speech site first and foremost, several of which I have cited to. With that in mind, you don't get to blanket impose your viewpoint instead of describing the controversy. This is especially true when virtually every single citation in the entire article references, directly or indirectly, some element of that controversy, with the grand theme being the tug-of-war between free speech and moderation and how people react to Gab adhering to the free speech side of that equation unswervingly.

The assertions are well-sourced, supported by WP:NPOV, add valuable context in terms of WP:Notability and I think accomplish that in an unbiased way. Check your own biases at the door. I'm restoring the content and if you feel the need to undo it I'll be escalating this to an admin. Ginjuice4445 (talk) 00:36, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

There are some fairly major WP:DUE issues with the sources used by Ginjuice4445 to paint a picture not supported by majority of reliable sources - it strikes a false balance by using less reliable (e.g. Quillette) sources & cherrypicked quotes from reliable sources where a more holistic approach would not represent the issue in these words. PeterTheFourth (talk) 01:09, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

The statement which the article currently uses, and my edit replaced - "Gab has been described as a platform for the altright" - is a half-truth. The other half of the discussion is represented by statements from the company itself and independent sources, which I cite to extensively and discuss the hate speech issue in detail without labelling the site as a platform for the altright.

The writers of those articles express an understanding that adopting a free speech policy will allow the altright to operate on the site with impunity. Your failure to embrace the other side of the controversy in the introduction to this article is extremely misleading, particularly when both sides of the controversy (free speech vs. moderation) are referenced extensively throughout. You're basically misleading your reader into thinking that the pro-moderation forces are right, that Gab's policies are motivated by bias rather than free speech absolutism, and that there are no alternative explanations for the presence of fringe elements on Gab's site.

The "holistic approach" is what my edit did. It explained why the fringe elements are there (they are there due to the moderation policy, having been booted off other platforms) rather than smearing the entire site as racist, as you propose to do. Ginjuice4445 (talk) 01:34, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Framing the favorable content as "neutral", and negative content as coming from "detractors" is misrepresenting a personal opinion as an objective fact. We do not pretend that if one side is significant, the "other side" must also have a place at the table. Who get's to decide where the lines between "sides" is drawn? Why only two sides, and not more, or less? It's subjective, and it's up to sources to determine these things, not editors.

Finding convenient sources to frame this as a tug-of-war between free speech moderation is specifically inappropriate here, because among other things, it's simplistic. Calling the site controversial is empty and obvious. It tells readers nothing, even if it is the "grand theme" of sources. We weigh sources based on their reliability and summarize accordingly, we don't try and balance sources based on our own assessment of their ideology. For one thing, we are not impartial when determining that ideology. For another, having an ideology doesn't make a source less correct.

We are not interesting in Gab's public relations, because Wikipedia isn't a platform for advertising. If the site's PR people claim the site has a diverse userbase, the significance of that claim would still require context from reliable sources. It's obvious from even a superficial glance at the site what the bulk if its content is, and it's perfectly compatible with the alt-right, but this is something that needs to be explained according to reliable source. They do explain this, over and over again. Grayfell (talk) 01:55, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Re: 1, then say "proponents and detractors." But let's not pretend the detractors aren't detractors. I read the articles. If you want to see a NPOV then look to the BBC link I link below.

Re: 2 What's this now, Washington Times, Newsweek, Ars Technica, Mic (media company) and Gizmodo aren't good, reliable sources for tech journalism? Since when? The sources are there, I did the research and found them. It's wildly inappropriate to dismiss them for no other reason than the fact that you don't like their conclusions. Incidentally, the "free speech vs moderation" angle is the exact angle which arguably the best, most objective source in the world, the BBC, took with regard to Gab (link). I'm not making this stuff up.

Re: 3, "obvious from even a superficial glance"... evidence? There are 500,000 users of the site. You really think all of them are alt-right? And you really think that a third party source quoting the company isn't relevant or worthy of inclusion? Are we not allowed to describe the company's own view of its own product on this page, especially where that view conforms with the "free speech" half of the sources and provides important context to the controversy surrounding this company? If so, I might suggest you go over to Facebook's page and tell them to pull all the quotes from Mark Zuckerberg or any Facebook employee that are all over the page. But you aren't doing that, are you.

To be frank, I think you're bringing your personal biases to the table here and are unable to see that this article does a disservice to anyone reading it. If you're that confident in your claims, accept mediation and we'll see whether the mediators agree with you. Ginjuice4445 (talk) 02:23, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, but you are doing a bad job of summarizing those sources, even if some of them are reliable

I could get into why each of these sources is being misrepresented, or why grouping "detractors" together isn't neutral, but in order for that to be productive, you must understand the baseline problem with this approach. As I already explained, the raw quantity of sources isn't the problem. Did you not read that the first time? To put it simply, do not use an opinion source to present an opinion as fact. Do not use a source to imply something that is not explicitly stated. Grayfell (talk) 04:34, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

You are a bad faith actor, Grayfell, as both this talk page and your edits show. If you had any interest in actually reaching consensus you'd engage with the sources and suggest new language. All you're doing instead is blanking my and others' contributions. It is a pity you are unwilling to acquiesce to third party moderation, as this would reveal that my and others' contributions to this page are perfectly valid and your repeated blanking of those contributions, and inability to constructively engage with facts that run contrary to the narrative you want to promote, is old-fashioned, run of the mill bias. Ginjuice4445 (talk) 05:12, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

You've been trying to change the article for less than a day. Did you think consensus was quick and easy? I mean... sometimes it is, but convenience isn't the priority.

Per WP:Mediation: The role of the mediator is to facilitate consensus-building discussion, not to arbitrate or adjudicate disputes or issue binding decisions. This means you, also, have to discuss your edits in order to reach consensus. Mediation is not the Wikipedia police. If you want to report my behavior, there are other forums for this, such as WP:ANI. You're going to have to explain exactly how my behavior is inappropriate, however, and going around posting to different forums without a very good reason is going to boomerang on you as forum shopping.

Assuming good faith doesn't mean ignoring bad edits. It means exactly what's happening here on the talk page. Discussion to reach consensus. Your edits have serious problems which you have not addressed. Further, it seems that you do not understand what these problems are, or have decided that these problems don't matter. Consensus doesn't mean that you get to decide what the article says.

Like I said, I would be willing to discuss each of these sources, but only if the underlying problems are acknowledged, first. Grayfell (talk) 05:30, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

I don't see that there are underlying problems, particularly with the most recent edit link to diff which was pared down from the first edit earlier today, which addressed any possible editorializing and tried to stick to the facts... and which you, once again, blanked. Blanking is not collaborative or consensus-building. Blanking isn't proposing changes to the language or asking for specific clarifications on specific citations, all of which were and are directly on point, especially the most recent set of changes I proposed (which you, lest you have forgotten, blanked). Blanking is edit warring and WP:Stonewalling. It's a total inability to see things from the perspective of the editor who is presenting you with new information that directly contradicts what you want to see in the article. And it's what makes you a very poor editor of this encyclopedia. Ginjuice4445 (talk) 05:39, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Okay, let's talk about that edit. This source was a submission to a conference. It is not (yet) a properly published academic citation and should not be used without attribution, but let's look at it anyway. The summary includes this line: We analyzed 22M posts from 336K users, finding that Gab attracts the interest of users ranging from alt-right supporters and conspiracy theorists to trolls.[1] Is that something you would like to include in the lede of the article? If so, we first need to explain this information in the body. The Verge source doesn't mention Gab at all as far as I can see, making it's use in the article WP:SYNTH. Is it mentioned in the Google paper? If so, that's a WP:PRIMARY source which has additional problems. It goes on like this. Instead of trying to tweak these unusable edits, the burden is on you to gain consensus for your proposed changes, and in order for that to happen, you have to understand what we are telling you about Wikipedia. Grayfell (talk) 05:49, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Re: the paper, that's one citation out of five. What it says is that the incidence of right-wingers is about 2% higher than that on Twitter etc. so I'd be happy to see that in the lede. If that is your only substantial objection to my edit, I would recommend undoing your edit, restoring my changes and I will offer this BBC piece as an alternative citation. As for the Verge piece, this refers explicitly to the content moderation policies of Google, Facebook and Twitter. Although the powerpoint presentation the Verge piece refers to does discuss Gab, the citation is not offered to prove a point about Gab, it's offered to verify a data point about the moderation policies of those other companies. We can demonstrate Gab does not have those moderation policies with the links from the Washington Times and Gizmodo which are provided later in the sentence. Ginjuice4445 (talk) 05:56, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

What? My only substantial... did you read all of my comment? It wasn't that long. As I've said multiple times, there are many problems here.

Again, the "paper" is a submission, not a published study, and it shouldn't be used without attribution. That means we would need a specific reason, based on reliable sources, to provide the name of Savvas Zannettou of the Cyprus Institute of Technology in the article. What reliable source mentions this study? What does that source say about this study? That's what would be needed to use this source.

I do not see any place where the source says there are 2% more "right wingers" than on twitter. I do see where it says the use of hate words is 2.2 times higher than Twitter. This doesn't even matter, though. Digging through an obscure, unpublished study to try and find a single data-point which supports your perspective, while ignoring the summary of that study by the study's authors, is the definition of cherry-picking. No dice.

As I said, there are many problems with these edits. Too many to expect a simple fix, and too many for this to be an improvement to the article.

A source which doesn't mention Gab should not be used for an article about Gab. Using a source to support your own research about Gab is WP:OR, which is not allowed. This isn't the place to research information about Twitter or Facebook's censorship. This is the place to summarize reliable sources about Gab.

Again, there were many problems. Synthing up a summary of the site's lack of moderation to make a point about other site's censorship, or to justify why the site's userbase isn't really alt-right, would be original research in service of a specific agenda.

This is not appropriate. Grayfell (talk) 06:30, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Re: the percentages, your comment that " What it says is that the incidence of right-wingers is about 2% higher than that on Twitter etc. so I'd be happy to see that in the lede," it's in the journal article if you'd care to read it. "Hate speech is extensively present on the platform, as we find that 5.4% of the posts include hate words. This is 2.4 times higher than on Twitter, but 2.2 times lower than on 4chan’s Politically Incorrect board (/pol/)." That means that roughly 2.25% of the posts on Twitter include those words, and would lead to the conclusion that the incidence of those types of post on Gab make up, as a proportion of total posts, an additional 2.15% of the content on the site.

If you really don't like the journal article, I am not that attached to it and would be happy to pull the word "alternative," and the citation, completely. In the alternative I have the BBC link I mentioned above which can be offered in support of the same assertion, but again you aren't interested in dealing with new information as much as you are in preventing any changes from being made to this article. Re: Verge, if you would allow the language, which of course you won't, I'll do the research and find a solid supporting citation that includes Gab, or redraft the sentence to e.g. "Gab follows a moderation policy X. This is different from Company A and B which follow moderation policy Y." This helps explain why Gab is important and why indeed anyone is on this page talking about it.

Summing up, I proposed adding maybe 25 words to this article, tops, in an effort to make this article provide a neutral treatment to the subject matter, not "in service of a specific agenda." My agenda is accurate treatment of this subject. I have provided plenty of citations from reliable sources in several different ways in an attempt to appease you, who are WP:Stonewalling any modifications to the article whatsoever. What's inappropriate here is your refusal to accept changes to an article you've been camped out on for a long time because of your own personal biases, and your total inability to identify specific criticisms in response to my attempts to elicit them.

Waving your arms around frantically with unspecified claims that my edits violated this wikipedia policy or that one is a poor substitute for having an interest in dealing with and incorporating well-sourced information which directly contradicts the main thrust of this article as it stands today. I am not "Synthing up a summary of the site's lack of moderation to make a point about other site's censorship." I'm explaining why Gab is controversial. This subject is dealt with extensively by every other citation I included with the new language, but previous attempts to quote from those sources directly resulted in the erasure of my contributions on the basis that - in your words - "Wikipedia is not interested in 'both sides' style false balance", and the reversion to the (painfully incorrect) version of the article that we have before us now. The fact is, you just don't want to include new sources or information that contradict your views. This article is of poor quality because of you. Shame on you. Ginjuice4445 (talk) 13:13, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

The number of posts containing hate words is not the same as the number of users! Unless, of course, each user only ever made a single post. Also, why are you assuming that all uses of hate words indicate "right-wingers" and none of the non-hate word users are right wing? If you made a mistake, fine. If you do not understand the study, don't cite it.

The lede of the article already states that Gab promotes itself as a free speech platform. It's in the first paragraph, before even the alt-right stuff. Nowhere does the article claim that every single user is alt-right, or that Gab was actively designed to be alt-right exclusive. The flip-side of free speech is that a platform which doesn't control its users also doesn't get to control what other people say about it. When reliable sources look at Gab (which isn't very often) they find that it's dominated by the far-right and conspiracy theorists who actively drive away more moderate users. If Torba didn't want this to happen, he done fucked up, didn't he?

You keep mentioning a BBC article from 2016 as an alternative, but this is backwards. What is it an alternative to? You should not adding information you personally know or believe and then go looking for sources which support your prior assumptions. We should find reliable sources and summarize them. Further, we don't just cite the headline, we cite the substance of the article. The article is very clear that Gab is very, very popular with the alt-right ("It's become the go-to social network for an extreme group of activists who have been chucked off of Twitter", "...the fact that Gab has offered asylum to the alt-right refugees from Twitter who have washed up on its shores...", "He says the site will continue to attract more of the same types of users - conservatives and alt-right activists", etc.) I have never seen a source which claims that all users of the site are alt-right, and that's obviously incorrect... but according to reliable sources, most of them are on the right-leaning fringes. As the BBC points out, Twitter has vastly more significant users and a vastly larger audience, so why wouldn't someone just use that site?

In the BBC article, Torba is frequently quotes, but he does a tepid job of defending the site's reputation. He mentions some other users, but he never indicates why those users cannot also be alt-right. As an example, he is implying that one cannot be a Hindu philosopher and also far-right, but this is demonstrably false, and he is not qualified to make this claim anyway. Even the BBC article puts "diverse users" in quotes, suggesting that the BBC isn't willing to except this as straightforward.

Torba's opinion would need to be presented as his opinion, and only with a specific reason. Cheryl K. Chumley of The Washington Times might write an opinion about "why the ideological right can’t create an Internet-based community of its own"[2] but who gets to summarize that opinion, and why exactly, does that opinion belong in the lede of the article?

Believe it or not, I actually do have some knowledge about how Wikipedia works. If you want to fixate on my behavior as a villain, instead of trying to understand what I'm saying, you might get to feel smug about the situation, but the article isn't going to improve, and you might get blocked for personal insults. Grayfell (talk) 19:30, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

I can't help but agree with most editors here - especially the early edits by Ginjuice4445 are poorly sourced, riddled with original research and rely on very thin claims to make sweeping statements. The open hostility of the editor shows no willingness to work towards a consensus and frankly completely turned me off. Ravensfire (talk) 23:36, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Again, finding it hard to see how my sources are poorly sourced when they're all mainstream newspapers or tech publications. I have made minimal changes to the text and merged the two paragraphs in order to prevent the article from conveying the misleading impression that the site is uniformly regarded as alt-right. These are all solid sources so if you're going to challenge them, please explain one by one and get consensus before you revert. Ginjuice4445 (talk) 00:48, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Ravensfire, and I would revert the most recently sourced revisions to the last version edited by Greyfell. The current revisions move the page away from WP:NPOV. SportingFlyer talk 02:08, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

• As multiple editors have now tried to explain, the problem is not the quantity of sources, it's how they are misrepresented to convey a specific, promotional perspective. I cannot understand why this is confusing to you. If you don't understand with what any of us are saying, ask new questions instead of demanding even more answers to questions we've already tried to address. Grayfell (talk) 02:18, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

• I tried to revert the changes but it looks like I messed something up, I apologise. Looks like I don't understand how to revert several revisions using the "undo" feature. SportingFlyer talk 07:51, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

If you are using the web version: from the page's history, select the revision you want to restore and click "cur" on the left-hand side. This will produce a diff spanning to the current revision, like this one. From there, 'undo' should work. I haven't figured it out on the mobile site or the apps. Grayfell (talk) 08:21, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and done the revert. You shouldn't feel the need to apologise - personally, it took me ages to figure out how. PeterTheFourth (talk) 08:42, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

I am going to try reaching consensus on this the usual way. Suggest closing this discussion. Ginjuice4445 (talk) 23:25, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

The article isn't an insult to Gab.com so much as an insult to Wikipedia and any pretense of Neutral Point Of View. Gab.com does not describe itself as far-right. We should say that some media has described it as such, not that it is far-right as a settled fact. In Wikipedia's defense, our reliable sources are no longer very objective, so naturally when we use them as our source of truth, the truth gets skewed. But there are other reliable sources that disagree. Gab.com does not itself have a point of view, although its users do tend to come from the Right, as those are the ones whom the Left is censoring. Fnordware (talk) 15:01, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

I agree with the bulk, and the intent of your statement, with exactly one caveat. Gab DOES have the "point of view" of supporting Free Speech, and that POV is consistent between what Gab says about itself and how Gab actually operates IRL. The problem is that the Media is participating in the conflict, vs. simply reporting it, so finding "reliable sources" is going to be difficult to find in order to accurately report the truth of things. And, to further complicate the situation, attempting to adhere as close as possible to "the truth" (that's under-reported by the Media) is in direct conflict with Wikipedia's policies, which must be maintained. We're attempting to build, or upgrade, a neutral, encyclopedic Article using sources that are, for the most part, the exact opposite of that. And yet, that is what we must do because use of Original Research and the consensus of the personal opinions of a handful of Editors is unacceptable, and prohibited. Given the tension between these two dynamics ("Truth" vs. "Wikipedia Policy"), everyone involved is going to have to compromise in order to work together. Adherence and compliance with Wikipedia's Policies is going to have to be done with full awareness that the source material is less than optimal.2605:6000:6947:AB00:403D:E24D:E465:4A0 (talk) 00:33, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

I meant it has no point of view on the Left-Right political spectrum, which is (theoretically) orthogonal to free speech. But yes, as the news media more and more chooses sides it's going to be more difficult to maintain NPOV on Wikipedia because anyone from a particular side can get a skewed reliable source. The solution has to be to sample from both types of media and represent both sides. It's a sad state of journalism, but it means Wikipedia's NPOV is more crucial now than ever before. Fnordware (talk) 17:50, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Drafting lede to WP:NPOV

I propose the following language for the lede:

Gab is a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-based social networking service formerly based in Austin, Texas. It was created as an alternative to Twitter and promotes itself as supporting free speech, although critics describe Gab as a platform for white supremacists and the alt-right. It allows its users to read and write messages of up to 300 characters, called "gabs". The site also offers multimedia functionality.

Why?

...The issue with the current lede is that it insinuates that the site is designed for the alt-right and white supremacists. There are two problems with this. First, much of what is offered to show this is op-ed content - particularly the Vice and CNBC pieces. None of the sources offered to demonstrate that assertion actually show that the site is aimed at or exclusively for the alt-right actually demonstrate that. Second, I offer four sources - Newsweek, Washington Times, Gizmodo, and Yahoo News - which are reliable and which indicate that there is more to the "free speech" side of the discussion than other editors, in particular Grayfell, are willing to admit. It also fails to touch on the fact that much of the controversy around Gab relates to the tug-of-war between free speech on the one hand and moderation on the other, with secondary sources such as the BBC and primary sources such as Google both showing that Gab stands alone among similar tech companies in possessing this zero-moderation policy.

Unless anyone can provide specific reasons why these four sources are somehow deficient or do not add proper context to this article I intend to update the article with this language. I am open to suggestions for better language or sources. Ginjuice4445 (talk) 23:25, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

Since we have already provided reasons these edits are not appropriate, you should think twice before issuing an implied ultimatum. You may disagree with our reasons, but that doesn't make them invalid. You do not get to limit this discussion by requiring that we only objection on your terms. A reliable source is only reliable in context.

Neither the CNBC article nor the Vice article are opinions. They are merely two of many sources which document Gab's reputation and user-base.

"Critics" is a WP:WEASEL term. It's not just undefined "critics" who describe Gab as a platform for the alt-right, it's virtually every single reliable source which investigates it. Replacing "critics" with "outside observers" or "experts" would be exactly as accurate and much more neutral. Implying that it's "Critics" vs. "free speech" is pretty blatantly misrepresenting this as false equivalence. We do not have some sources saying one thing and others saying something different. We have sources in agreement that the site is populated with alt-right and conspiracy theory content far above and beyond most other social media sites. Wikipedia has a mainstream bias, like it or not, and when reliable sources say a thing over and over, we don't cast doubt on that just because one company, or some editors, disagree.

Nowhere does the article say that the site was designed for the alt-right, but does say, correctly, that the site provides a platform to the alt-right. Further, according to reliable, non-opinion sources, it is primarily known as a platform for the alt-right and similar fringe groups. The occasional kitten memes or confused libertarians do not invalidate this, and as far as I can see the article doesn't imply that every single contributor must be a white supremacist.

So using the term although as a connection falsely implies that "alt-right" and "free speech" are somehow incompatible or opposed. This is editorializing, as reliable, non-opinion sources do not claim that the site's stated mission of advocating for free speech is incompatible with being a platform for the alt-right, etc. Even Torba admits that the site's popularity among the alt-right is no accident, since the site welcomes people who have been kicked-off of other platforms for their ideas. The current lead already says that it's purported mission is to advocate for free speech, which we all seem to agree on. The current lede also states that it has been identified as a platform for the alt-right and white supremacists. If reliable sources do not state as a fact that these two things are incompatible, neither should Wikipedia. Grayfell (talk) 23:56, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

I concur with Grayfell. The current lede does not insinuate the site is designed for the alt-right. The only sentence at issue here is "Gab has been described as a platform for white supremacists and the alt-right." I don't mind rewriting this sentence, but it's already very neutral compared to what could be written as a synthesis of the sources quoted. I don't actually recommend any changes. SportingFlyer talk 02:06, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

SportingFlyer I agree it's neutral but it's not telling the full story, only half of it. I detail below.

Grayfell:

1) "You do not get to limit this discussion by requiring that we only objection on your terms." I'm asking you to object to the sources. If you can't object to the quality of the sources, please explain why this article - being part of an encyclopedia - should not include and account for the viewpoint those sources represent.

2) The CNBC piece is clearly an opinion source. Vice is also known to have a "slight to moderate" left bias. The only source offered for the "alt-right" assertion which could be considered neutral is the Times of Israel piece.

3) Point taken re: platform. Instead of "critics" then "others" or other language.

4) "reliable, non-opinion sources do not claim that the site's stated mission of advocating for free speech is incompatible with being a platform for the alt-right, etc." ...but it has been described as both a platform for free speech and a platform for the alt-right. The new, objective, reliable sources I have introduced which you are unable to object to all state that it is a free speech platform and aims to be such. Not including the "free speech" component because you want to keep the "alt-right" front and center is also editorializing. The current wording of the article emphasizes alt-right and de-emphasizes free speech. I am trying to create balance.

5) "If reliable sources do not state as a fact that these two things are incompatible, neither should Wikipedia." You're asking the wrong question. The question isn't whether they are incompatible, the question is what the service actually is. That is disputed. The service itself argues it is a free speech haven. Critics call it an alt-right haven. See BBC "Free Speech Haven or Alt-Right Safe Space?", [[The Hill] describes the site as a "free speech alternative" to Twitter (link), as did the Newsweek, Yahoo/Huffpo, Washington Times and Gizmodo pieces.

The current lede says "It was created as an alternative to Twitter and promotes itself as supporting free speech...Gab has been described as a platform for white supremacists and the alt-right." That's half correct. It is true that Gab promotes itself as supporting free speech. It is also true that Gab has been described by neutral third persons as a platform for free speech, which happens to be the view the company provides, and by other neutral third persons as a platform for the alt right. Generally the people who give it one description are not inclined to give it the other description. I've now provided numerous reliable, neutral, third party sources that show Gab has been described by persons other than itself as a free speech platform. It is high time those sources and the views they express were represented fairly in the lede. Ginjuice4445 (talk) 02:29, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

The free speech bit is in the lede. It was created as an alternative to Twitter and promotes itself as supporting free speech. You have just admitted neutral sources describe the company either as promoting free speech OR as a platform for the alt-right. Both of those views can co-exist in the lede, and actually must coexist in the lede per WP:NPOV. Calling one "critics" is not neutral. There is no problem here. SportingFlyer talk 02:33, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

I agree we can drop the word critics. However there is a difference between saying "the company promotes itself as a free speech platform + third parties call it alt right" and "the company promotes itself as a free speech platform + third parties call it a free speech platform or alt right." The first version is prejudicial to the company by making it seem like independent sources don't buy the free speech narrative. The second version is fairer. Ginjuice4445 (talk) 02:38, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

I still disagree with you, and we are here to state facts, not to promote a company in its best light, but I have no problem if you want to add other third-parry sources after the "promotes itself as a free speech platform" sentence. SportingFlyer talk 02:41, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

How about this:

"Gab is a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-based social networking service formerly based in Austin, Texas.[1][2] Gab promotes itself and has been described as a "free speech alternative to Twitter"[3][4][5][6][Plus BBC and The Hill, so [7] [8] too]. It has also been described as a platform for white supremacists and the alt-right. It allows its users to read and write messages of up to 300 characters, called "gabs". The site also offers multimedia functionality." Ginjuice4445 (talk) 02:47, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

I do not agree with this reasoning, although it's a step in the right direction. Not every aspect of this site is a defining characteristic. So let's go through which reliable sources say it's a free speech platform and evaluate for WP:DUE:

• The BBC source doesn't say this. It phrases this as an unanswered question as a rhetorical device, and quotes Torba's claims that it is about free speech. This has already been established.
• The Hill article says Gab.ai, a “free speech” alternative to Twitter, does not enforce any form of “community standard.” The use of quotation marks cannot be ignored. Who is being quoted? Presumably it is Gab itself, which is again, already established. The paragraph contextualizes Gab as being filled with conspiracy theories and says If bad speech drives out good in the absence of community standards, most people will not use the platform. The paragraph is the only mention of Gab in the source. What is this source, judged by itself, saying about Gab?
• The Newsweek source is explicitly about The conflict over Gab’s credibility as a “free speech” website... This is about the site's hosting problems and their banning of weev. Again, it uses quotes and cites PR from the site itself. It's a complicated issue which is clearly not taken at face value by the source. It also directly and repeatedly compares Gab to Daily Stormer, and not favorably. They are not calling Daily Stormer a free speech platform (nobody is calling it that) they are saying that hosting the site is a free speech issue. This may be true, but is a very different thing.
• The Gizmodo source is more plausible. I think a case could be made that, like the Newsweek one, it's about the site's infrequent censorship, not about it's free speech, but the context does support the "free speech" description: But while Gab might claim to be the most active site that lets users write whatever they hell they want, it’s still a website. Websites have guidelines, and guidelines are made to be enforced. Gab’s rules are fairly unsurprising: No doxxing, revenge porn, credible threats, spam, or selling drugs or weapons. So far, it’s already banned three users—and the long waiting list means a banned user can’t immediately return. I reject the idea that we have to take tongue-in-cheek description at face value. We stick to sources, but we don't have to play stupid to obvious sarcasm or irony. The Gizmodo article uses scare-quotes around "censorship" and describes Gab's contempraries as clamoring to be the Most Free for free speech absolutists. Like I said, we have to pay attention to context. It's also worth noting that this was January 2017, and both the site, and its coverage, has changed since then. This is a problem with many of the article's sources, but that's a separate issue.
• If you're concerned about bias, citing an opinion from Washington Times is pretty silly, but regardless, it would only belong with attribution, as already mentioned.
• The Yahoo article is also about the Weev incident, like the Newsweek one. It quotes a Gab exec as claiming it's about free speech, and says the site's hosting difficulties raise "questions" about free speech online, but this all seems far too abstract when taken out of context.
• The Huffington Post article is a republication of the Yahoo article. They are functionally the exact same source.
• If I had a nickel for every time someone tried to use mediabiasfactcheck on a talk page... well, I'd have a few bucks at least. Even if that site were reliable, which I do not accept, the "bias" of a site isn't the issue. It's possible for left, right, or center sources to be reliable. Regardless, the Vice article very clearly attributes the free speech claims to Gab and nobody else. The source also cites the conference paper discussed earlier, which is useful. It quotes from the paper's summary: "while Gab claims to be all about free speech, this seems to be merely a shield behind which its Alt-right users hide". The pretty clearly summarizes the underlying issue, and it the sources were stronger, I would propose including that quote in this article.

Did I miss any? Grayfell (talk) 04:27, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

Don't think so, and agree we're getting somewhere. Let me chew on your comments and will come back in a few days. Ginjuice4445 (talk) 05:05, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

References

I've restored far-right to the lede, and I think we need to add the recent events including PayPal's banning and loosing their provider. Note that being a free speech site and far-right are not contradictory. Doug Weller talk 08:58, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

The controversy escalated rather quickly - I support this generally. SportingFlyer talk 09:59, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

And, no surprise, it's gone so the first para just presents GAB's views, with others relegated to the second paragraph. Doug Weller talk 16:09, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

There have been a number of intervening changes to the second paragraph. I have tried to ensure that the viewpoints are all contained in the second paragraph, with undisputed information only in the first. I disagree that the term "far-right" belongs in the lede. Simply because a number of the site's users are far-right does not make it a far-right site. The references reflect the two-sided nature of the debate about Gab and who uses it. Ginjuice4445 (talk) 20:14, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

This page appears to be somewhat controversial. I do not wish to add more controversy but to at least add balance. I too disagree that the term far-right belongs in the first paragraph, and a bit more objectivity should be inserted to compensate for the obvious emotional reactions Gab apparently produces in some editors. I have (naively) attempted to add two pieces of information. First addition was to the first paragraph that clarified Gab's stated purpose as 'free speech' rather than simply regurgitated what some press reports have labelled it as 'alt-right haven'. The second addition (actually made first) was to add a reference to the email sent to Gab users reiterating Gab's policy against violence or inciting violence. I found a copy of the email posted on Medium and cited it there but this was felt to be 'unreliable' despite the fact that none other than NPR used the same reference ( see https://www.npr.org/2018/10/28/661532688/a-look-at-gab-the-free-speech-social-site-where-synagogue-shooting-suspect-poste ). As if to confirm the conservative claims of liberal bias, my additions were immediately reversed without plausible reason. One claim was 'false reference' which was absurd. Another labelled my additions or reversal of reversals 'vandalism'. I leave the history log to the viewers' honest review. As a new Wiki editor, I apologize in advance for any faux pas or lack of fancy markup Dell Anderson — Preceding unsigned comment added by DellAnderson (talk • contribs) 01:45, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

No bias here, but Medium is not a WP:RS. SportingFlyer talk 01:59, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Glad that you have no bias, but how else do we explain the clear anti-Gab tone of this entire Gab Wiki page? So what if Medium is not considered a fully WP:RS? Does that make information the email Gab members (such as myself) received any less true than claims that Gab is purely an Alt-Right platform? Does all news need to be laundered by the Washington Post / NYT / San Francisco Chronicle to be considered a WP:RS? What if it was just a book published by some human author? Could we cite it then? If so, we have a real problem and Wikipedia will lose relevance. I am asking seriously, not to cause argument but to add illumination. Do all Wikipedia pages really have no statements on them without WP:RS citations? If so, I must have hallucinated quite a few things I read on WP over the years. When news is breaking fast, even the major media seem to have questionable ability to elicit real from fake news. However, in the case of Gab no one has even attempted to claim that the email received by Gab members did not occur - they have only critiqued my use of Medium as a convenient reference for the text in that email. Using the WP:RS criterion, no email notification whatsoever will ever be mentioned on WP. Is that the goal? --DellAnderson — Preceding unsigned comment added by DellAnderson (talk • contribs) 02:46, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Self-published sources such as Medium are generally assumed to be unreliable. See WP:QUESTIONABLE. Also I believe interest in this article has surged in the past couple days due to the tragedy, but there was already an ongoing discussion about how to maintain the WP:NPOV of the article. Considering the article is now news, it's going to be much harder to do now unfortunately... SportingFlyer talk 02:56, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

DellAnderson, please see Help:Signature.

There are multiple issues here. Yes, generally, all information added to articles should be sourced. Sometimes, for non-controversial things, sources have not been added yet, but the idea is still that it should be added eventually. Wikipedia also strongly favors third-party sources when available.

The first time the email was added, it had no verifiable source at all. The Medium link does resolve that.

Reliability isn't the only concern. I accept that the Medium page is from Gab, and that the email was sent to users. Context matters, and for this very specific context, Gab is a reliable source for Gab. That does not mean the information must be included.

Not every piece of information which can be sourced belongs in an article. The article already explains that Gab denounced violence and handed the information to the authorities. Why repeat it? Most websites send out emails to their users frequently, so why does this email matter?

As has already been mentioned, Wikipedia is not a platform for advertising, so why are we using a primary source to include redundant information? If independent sources don't seem to think this is worth mentioning, why should Wikipedia? Grayfell (talk) 03:24, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. And I am glad that we agree that Gab is a reliable source for Gab and that the Medium page is from Gab. So that leaves us to discuss whether the WP:NPOV requires that we mention the content of the email sent to uses October 28, 2018 following the Synagogue tragedy. You state that the article explains that Gab denounced violence and handed information to the authorities, why repeat it? Are you referring to the Wikipedia article or to the email/Medium statement? If the former, I find only brief mention of sharing information with the authorities, and the word "violence" is only used three times in the Wikipedia article, two of those times had negative bias against the company (mention of Google and PayPal dropping service). The third mention of violence was a rather bland statement of Gab's policy and did not reflect the tone of the recent email sent to Gab users and published on Medium strongly rejecting violence or incitation to violence of any kind and outlining in some detail Gab's voluntary cooperation with authorities regarding the suspect shooter's account on Gab. You are correct that the WP article does briefly mention Gab's actions regarding the shooter in the Synagogue shooting section, but in such a way that it is easily overwhelmed by negative bias statements such as "despite backlash" & "investors cut ties". These Wikipedia phrases imply that the company was formed specifically to promote Far Right agenda. Do we have any solid WP:RS for that?

Style and tone matter, and it is impossible to get it perfectly, but it seems clear from the strong efforts to block references to the full Gab statement/email and the introductory paragraph labeling Gab as a "far right American Social Network" are both inaccurate and intentionally biased against the company. Senator Hayakawa's (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._I._Hayakawa ) book "Language in Thought and Action) has a lot to say about the importance of looking at topics from a different perspective and avoiding terminology loaded with unnecessary connotations.

The topic of how to represent a company claiming to promote free speech is perhaps more important than just the company's reputation. It has implications for the viability and definition of free speech and its relevance in a democracy.

One of the editors who reversed one of my edits claimed that my changing the first paragraph to state that Gab was formed as a free speech alternative to Twitter falsely implied that Twitter was not a free speech platform. His/Her implication was that Twitter really is a free speech platform. This is a key issue in this entire discussion which some commenters have addressed above and others ignored, but must be addressed head on.

Twitter and Facebook have been accused (and even acknowledged in some cases) shadowbanning. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_banning ) Do we have any such evidence of shadow banning on Gab? More specifically has there been any Gab shadowbanning of liberal or Left wing viewpoints? If not, how can we honestly state that Gab is an Alt-Right platform rather than simply a free speech platform where many Alt Right persons banned on more liberal media have found refuge? This may seem like a minor distinction, but it is critically important to those who support free speech. And yes, I appreciate the argument that free speech and Alt Right platform are NOT mutually incompatible, but it is not clear how a "pure" free speech platform would differ from Gab. In other words, is it possible to have a free speech platform and not be smeared with the "Alt-Right" label? A truly WP:NPOV would acknowledge that Gab is doing everything it can to be free speech for all viewpoints rather than tar-and-feather it for allowing free speech with the inevitable collection of criminals.

The Gab email was especially relevant to the recent Synagogue shooting because it reminded readers that both Facebook (which streamed live murder) and Twitter (which ignored violent threats of the alleged bomber https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/10/28/twitter-apologizes-for-ignoring-apparent-threat-in-tweet/amp/ ) have had online criminal behavior yet both Facebook and Twitter continue to have wide spread financial support, while Gab is deplatformed, presumably because it is perceived as inclusive of conservative viewpoints. While the marketplace is free to have such bias, it need not be regurgitated as fact on WP. Nor should alternate viewpoints of Gab be repeatedly suppressed.

For example, the first sentence states "Gab is a far right[5][6][7][8] American social networking service[1][7][9], created as an alternative to Twitter which promotes itself as supporting free speech"

Grammatically, the sentence is poorly written (the phrase 'which promotes itself as supporting free speech) is ambiguous in reference: Gab or Twitter? Secondly, the statement "Gab is a far right..." is misleading (as has been discussed ad nauseum above yet without rational resolution.

The bias is clear. WP:NPOV is absent. How can we address it? For example, there was at least one compromise on this talk page that seemed perfectly acceptable which presented factual statements about Gab in the first sentence without unwarranted negative connotations, yet they were rejected. The reasons offered were as bias filled as the statement itself.

The omission of the email (which we both accepted) is relevant context to the Synagogue shooting section as it is not only timely but frames Gab's response more accurately than the negative bias implied by the statements that remain. Can we consider including some form of reference to it or Gab's clearly stated opposition to violence?

This is clearly not a settled topic and will be difficult to resolve if fellow editors cannot step outside their viewpoint.

DellAnderson (talk) 18:07, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Here is an article with a much more neutral point of view (surprising since Vox is usually Leftist). While Gab has attracted users on the Right who have been kicked off other platforms, the Gab site itself is apolitical. Fnordware (talk) 18:42, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

While Gab might not outright ban left-leaning individuals, its downvote function enables its users to drive people they don't like out of the platfrom. Why do you think women are driven off the platfrom in the first place? This is the definiton of an echo chamber.

Twitter cannot be called an alt-right platfrom because it shows effort in actively combating alt-right users spewing speech based on racial and sexual hatred. This effort is never shown on Gab. In fact Torba himself stated that all froms of offensive racial and sexual speech is "free speech" and are welcomed on the platform. Well. All free speech shall take consequences. As a result Gab's most followed users are entirely composed of alt-right figureheads and Neo-nazi fascists. This directly reflect that, Gab is a de facto platfrom of the alt-right. The article should accurately show Gab's current userbase and should not be whitewashed. Tsumikiria (T/C) 18:52, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

If you read the article, you'll see that the downvote feature was removed in Spring 2017. I agree downvoting would tend to lead to an echo chamber, but downvoting itself is not inherently Left or Right. If the Wikipedia article had a source that opined Gab.com was an echo chamber, it could be included. The standard that "Twitter cannot be called an alt-right platfrom because it shows effort in actively combating alt-right users" is unreasonable. You are saying Gab is guilty by association, guilty for what they HAVEN'T done. You clearly have a non-neutral point of view about Gab.com and the Right, alt-Right, etc., and of course that is fine. But Wikipedia articles are supposed to have a Neutral Point of View and this one does not. Fnordware (talk) 21:21, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

This article is about Gab, not Twitter. Yeah, Twitter does have hate speech which goes largely ignored. We have many articles on Twitter.

The phrase "free-speech platform" keeps coming up in this talk page. I don't know what calling the site a free-speech platform is supposed to tell readers. It sounds nice, but means different things to different people, so it's not very useful for an encyclopedia. Anyway, if sources say a site if X, than Wikipedia will say it's X. If Gab is identified for what they intentionally haven't done, so be it. Gab may say the site's politically agnostic, but companies say lots of things. We're interested in how reliable sources describe the site. Even before the shooting, the consistent thread among sources was the site's embrace of it's alt-right users. The Vox source repeatedly emphasizes this, also. Even if that's not a fair summary, it's really hard to deny this is what sources are saying. Grayfell (talk) 01:13, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Categories

The company was founded in Austin, Texas, but is now in Philadelphia. The article is currently in 2 Austin categories, but not in their Philadelphia counterparts. Pleade add these categories. 37.26.148.236 (talk) 11:09, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

 Done Morgan Ginsberg (talk) 11:37, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

I don't really like the location of Gab's, (or any other online service's) geographical location being in the Lede. While it might be relevant to a brick and mortar business, an online business is software, meaning ethereal. Gab is located wherever my computer is located. It's just not the 1st thing that should be mentioned in the Lede. It feels clunky, unwieldy and 1990's-ish. It also feels formatted, and amateurish, like a High School Essay, vs. professionally written Article.

But what compels me to post is the additional information of where Gab used to be located, and this is the part that crosses the line. I regard the Lede as precious. A very limited space within which (in accordance with Wikipedia's policies, or whatever), the Reader is supposed to be "invited" to read further. This aspect of Wikipedia is one of the qualities I care most about, and so whenever I read a clunky, uninviting Lede, that says a bunch of uninteresting things, I think about what all the inviting and interesting things that Lede DIDN'T say. It's a wasted opportunity to bring someone interested in a topic (in this case, Gab) into the body of an Article, where they might learn something. Conversely, a "burdened" Lede has the exact opposite effect of driving them away. Point: Does Gab's former business location HAVE to be in the Lede? Second Point: Isn't there something more interesting that the Lede COULD be saying?2605:6000:6947:AB00:403D:E24D:E465:4A0 (talk) 00:44, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

"Other alt-right and conservative media personalities,"

This is clearly an association fallacy, an appeal to emotion, and therefore a NPOV violation. You wouldn't say "Other Nazi and Liberal media personalities" now would you? Either rewrite this section to make it NPOV or use one phrase to describe all people involved. Also, this information is unsourced (it does not appear in the article). Rip-Saw (talk) 12:21, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

Agree. I have attempted to make this change but it was undone by editors who do not see it that way. Ginjuice4445 (talk) 16:33, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

Neutral. Use of the term "alt-right" as a pejorative has lost it's stigma, IMO, and to a great extent it doesn't even exist anymore. So including it with the word "Conservatives" doesn't have the same "zing" that it might have had in 2016. My primary objection to it's use (if I had one) is that it conveys a certain lack of political sophistication on the part of the person (or Article) that uses it, i.e. "non-encyclopedic", as well as "obsolete".2605:6000:6947:AB00:403D:E24D:E465:4A0 (talk) 09:40, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

"Far-right" in lede

Violates WP:NPOV. Editors keep prioritizing their own editorials ahead of well-sourced objective reporting. Ginjuice4445 (talk) 20:42, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

What is the "well-sourced objective reporting" in this case? --K.e.coffman (talk) 21:07, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

I'm interested in any reliable sources you could provide that disagree with 'far-right'. PeterTheFourth (talk) 22:14, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

I'm interested in any sources you could provide that says Gab is in fact a 'far-right' network. It has far-right users, as many sources point out, but none of these sources identify Andrew Torba, its founder, as being far-right, or the company itself as being far-right. The company permits far-right opinion, as indeed it allows all opinion of any kind that's allowed by the First Amendment. It is a leap to go from "this site tolerates far-right opinion" to "this is a far right social network."

On multiple occasions, including your most recent revert of my attempt to make this article more neutral, you've chosen to ignore sources which describe the site as a pro-free speech site first which happens to permit these far-right opinions. See this edit you reverted. Those citations contradict the proposition that Gab is a "far right" site. Deleting the citations doesn't mean they don't exist. Ginjuice4445 (talk) 22:22, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

there is no arguing with these people. Just be thankful the little propaganda ministers aren't pushing neo-nazi in the lede. It's hilarious that a youtube video from over a year ago is a source for it being far-right. Well here's sourced youtube video, from today, declaring it not far-right. <redacted> Oh wait, youtube videos shouldn't be seen as a source. And for good reason. I now patiently wait for my edit to be reversed, and for there to be a "very serious™ and "reliable™" reason why Gab is definitely and without question, politically aligned with National Socialists and Fascists. (ideologies that almost always oppose free speech) 2601:982:4200:A6C:4D27:B556:CEF0:1571 (talk) 22:31, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

I removed the Youtube link; not a place for promotion. K.e.coffman (talk) 22:41, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

I note your sources. You've provided headlines, not links. Summarizing headlines do not prove that this is a "far-right" platform. There's a dispute, per this reverted edit and others, as to whether this is a far-right site. I provided references showing it's a free speech site.

The site itself denies that it's alt-right. There are sources that agree with the site's own view of itself. There is no reason why this view shouldn't be represented and why the "far-right" description should be accepted as fact. The way to resolve the dispute in a consensus fashion is to say it is "described as an alt right site and described as a free speech site" rather than to say unequivocally and against consensus that it's "definitely a far-right site." Ginjuice4445 (talk) 22:51, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't a platform for public relations or advertising. You've provided many sources which mention free speech, but virtually all them, as has already been discussed in tedious detail, emphasize the far-right nature of the site. I haven't seen any reliable sources which agree that the site is "free speech" without a boatload of qualifiers. Gab's PR is irrelevant, and even your own sources are skeptical of this spin. The number of sources defining the site as far-right way has ballooned with the recent shooting, but this isn't a new thing. "Free speech" has always been a tactic to court the far-right, by Torba's own admission. Why do you think so many of these sources put free speech in scarequotes? Grayfell (talk) 23:06, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

No offense but this argument is rampant WP:SPECULATION. The articles mention free speech, period. We do not know why the authors chose to put the term in quotation marks where they chose to do so. It may be for emphasis, for example. Ginjuice4445 (talk) 23:09, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

This is becoming tendentious. We do not ignore context. This has already been explained multiple times. The article already explains the site's self-description. Grayfell (talk) 23:19, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

I disagree with your explanation and believe, given your problematic history with similar topics on your talk page (Ben Shapiro, Antifa in particular) that your perspective is tinged by bias. You are choosing to ignore good, objectively sourced information that contradicts your viewpoint. Ginjuice4445 (talk) 23:24, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

Sources

Please see:

• Anti-Semitic posts deleted from 'alt-right social network' following Microsoft crackdown -- The Telegraph
• Gab, Far-Right Web Platform Favored by Pittsburgh Shooter, Attacks Critics and Appeals to Donald Trump -- Newsweek
• On Gab, an Extremist-Friendly Site, Pittsburgh Shooting Suspect Aired ... York Times
• Alt-right website Gab attracts Bolsonaro supporters in Brazil -- Danbury News Times

K.e.coffman (talk) 22:40, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

Re: I provided references showing it's a free speech site, "far-right" and "free speech" are not mutually exclusive. The platform is best known as the hangout of the far-right. --K.e.coffman (talk) 22:58, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

"Best known?" Hard to prove that/that's editorializing, particularly given the sources that show it's a free speech network rather than a far right network. Ginjuice4445 (talk) 23:07, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

So when dozens of sources describe a site as far-right, it's time for nuance and subtly. When some of those same sites use the term "free speech" as context for explaining why it's far-right, subtly becomes "editorializing". Grayfell (talk) 23:23, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

When sites use free speech you don't ignore the "free speech" description, you give it equal treatment. See this NPR piece from today as an example of how to do it right: "a small social networking site that prides itself on providing a platform for free speech — but has become a gathering point for far-right users... As NPR's Alina Selyukh reported last year, 'many members of the far right and others who feel their views are stifled by mainstream sites like Twitter and Facebook' have gravitated toward Gab, with its promise of few restrictions on speech." That's fair, evenhanded language. Why can't we replicate it in this article? Ginjuice4445 (talk) 23:34, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, I like that source. So what does it say? The source says that the far-right has gravitated to Gab, which it specifically identifies as a "gathering point for far-right users", because it "prides itself on providing a platform for free speech". These two things are not disconnected. The only uses of the term "free speech" are in the headlines (which don't count?) and in comments attributed to Gab or Torba. If you want to summarize this source, you need to summarize the whole thing, not just the parts that you like. Grayfell (talk) 00:01, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Contrary to what you're saying, "free speech" appears twice in the body in the article, not zero. One of them is a quote from Torba. The other (and the first) is the lede of the article. The article also discusses the site's community standards in detail as the reason that alt-righters use the site.

The way to reflect that in prose is "It is a free speech site. As a result, far-right users use it because they don't get censored." That is what the NPR article says. Not, "it is a far right site. It also has a free speech policy." There are few sources more reliable than NPR. This is the view this Wikipedia article should reflect. Ginjuice4445 (talk) 00:12, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Read my comments again. I said it appears in the headline and in comments attributed to Gab/Torba. The lede usage is attributed to Gab itself, as context makes clear.

If this is now about "censorship", we need to evaluate sources all over again. Not every instance of someone being kicked off a platform should be called "censorship". Did Gab censor Weev? Did they censor the Synagogue shooter? Are they censoring spammers? This approach is loaded and inflammatory.

Which sources are saying this is about "censorship"? The NPR source only uses the term when quoting Gab's own material. Introducing this into the lede would absolutely require multiple reliable sources presenting this as a defining trait. Some sources discuss this, but that's not enough. Torba would certainly like us mention censorship, but reliable sources do not, apparently, accept that it's that simple. We are not trying to cram as many possible details as we can into the lede. Grayfell (talk) 00:43, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

It's not about cramming details in, it's about being accurate. TBQH if we replaced the second paragraph of this article's lede with the NPR lede word for word it would be an improvement. "Gab is a small social networking site that prides itself on providing a platform for free speech — but has become a gathering point for far-right users. Many members of the far right and others who feel their views are stifled by mainstream sites like Twitter and Facebook' have gravitated toward Gab, with its promise of few restrictions on speech." That would be perfect and is far superior to the current wording. Ginjuice4445 (talk) 01:40, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Do we have any evidence that non-ethnonationalist views are suppressed or censored on Gab? Would that not be the most objective way to determine if the *site* itself is far Right? If it does not meet that criteria, it would be more accurate to describe it as a site patronized by or popular among the far Right, which is what has actually been substantiated thus far. DsouzaSohan (talk) 02:24, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

@DsouzaSohan: We are not responsible for substantiating what reliable sources say. We do not do original research. PeterTheFourth (talk) 02:40, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

I have seen no evidence of any viewpoints being suppressed or censored on gab unless it's a doxing or a criminal threat. The site's admin states that all views are welcome regardless of their political orientation. See here. Ginjuice4445 (talk) 02:43, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

The idea that the "empty vessel" of a web site (or social media platform) can be called "right wing" just because a disproportionate number of it's Users are "right wing" needs to be discussed. Do the characteristics of it's Members determine the characteristics the platform? If so, how is that determination made, and by whom? There is nothing about Gab that explicitly encourages one political ideology over another, yet anyone that reads that Article might assume the platform's "branding" (logos, etc...) is littered with swastikas, 1488's, etc... There ARE explicitly "Nazi" websites, where non-"right wing" members are discouraged or prevented from participating (such as the "Daily Stormer"), and Gab is nothing like that. This Article does not differentiate between an explicitly "Right Wing" website, and a (more or less) "neutral" website where a disproportionately larger demographic of "right wingers" assemble, and practice free speech. If the majority of it's Users are "Left Wing, could Twitter be called a "Left Wing" platform? Finally I would ask Editors who believe that a neutral platform can be characterized by the ideology of it's Members, how many Nazi "apples" does it take to spoil the whole bushel? 50%? 10? 1? With the current fury of the Mid-Term elections raging, I do not believe that the "reliable sources" can be relied upon. This is a situation where common sense Editors using common sense should be aware of the "external" situation and maintain wikipedia's neutral and balanced perspective.2605:6000:6947:AB00:403D:E24D:E465:4A0 (talk) 02:49, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a "trailing indicator" of notability, meaning that other sources must be discussing the organisation as an "alt-right" platform, which is what is going on at the moment. Also the website is in the news outside of the USA talking about how it is being cut off by major organisations, see here: [3] SportingFlyer talk 03:00, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

The issue isn't that "other sources must be discussing the organisation as an "alt-right" platform." That I think everyone understands. It is that yet other sources describe Gab as a "free speech" platform, and that the free speech moderation policy is what leads critics to label it as a "haven for the alt-right." The issue with the article as it presently stands is that it does not adequately reflect both sides of that discussion. As indeed all of my comments on this talk page for the last week (see above) have argued. Ginjuice4445 (talk) 04:00, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

A new source, friends! "Gab, the white supremacist sanctuary...". Hmm. Don't know why people are calling it far-right! PeterTheFourth (talk) 12:01, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

The sourced article you just gave us uses the term "far right" exactly once in relation to Gab:

"But the platform’s history is tied to the white supremacists and other far-right figures who joined in its first months and have contributed to Gab’s growth."

Note the phrase "far right figures" refers to the Users of Gab, and not to Gab itself. Again I restate my "empty vessel" metaphor and again I ask the question "Is it fair to characterize the entire social media platform based on the actions of one, or a minority of it's Users (if someone wants to find another criminal who happened to use Gab), or the character (extremist, right-wing political views) of a minority of it's Users (about 5%, according to the sources that I've seen here, so far)?"

Also note the phrase "history is tied to" (other far-right figures) means that Gab is tied to "far right figures". It does not say that Gab is "far right". And it is only Gab's history that is tied to the "far right", and not Gab in it's entirety. My point is that this is the only statement that supports your assertion (that Gab is "far right"), and it does not say what you think it says.

Further, while you seem to think your source supports the idea (as a general characterization) that Gab is "far right", "white supremacist", "extreme", etc..., I would like you to consider this from your sourced article:

"Torba’s updates have kept Gab’s users in the loop on the drama: Gab’s chief technology officer Ekrem Büyükkaya announced Sunday that he was stepping down because the “attacks from the American press have been relentless for two years now and have taken a toll on me personally.”

In case you don't know, former Gab CTO and Founder Ekrem Büyükkaya is "...a Muslim of Kurdish origin..." who recently quit, not because of all the "White Supremacy", "far right" "extremism", but instead because the "attacks from the American press have been relentless for two years now and have taken a toll on me personally." Not the racists, the white supremacists or the extremists on Gab. Attacks from the American Press caused him to quit, and it's your own source that says this. But somehow you think this is a source that supports the idea that a small minority of Users on an "empty vessel" social media platform is what best characterizes that social media platform. This situation is much more complex than some Editors seem to perceive.2605:6000:6947:AB00:403D:E24D:E465:4A0 (talk) 14:52, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Edit Request

Could the {{Current related}} and {{Excessive citations}} tags be put on the page as well? funplussmart (talk) 02:03, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

• Do not support. With events in such a high state of flux (Gab just went down within the last 30 minutes, with a message that looks more "long term" than temporary) and Mass Media's efforts at essentially blaming a social media platform for one of it's account holder's criminal actions, the Article needs those citations for credibility. At this time, the Article needs MORE citations, not less. I just found a passage that said something it's citation did not say. Had that citation not been there, I might not have found the discrepancy. There are probably more. With Gab offline, and it's only competitor (Twitter's) bias and censorship, there no longer exists a "check and balance" against the Media Narrative.2605:6000:6947:AB00:403D:E24D:E465:4A0 (talk) 02:26, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
• Support. Both are true. SportingFlyer talk 03:02, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
• Do not support. Until the WP:NPOV issues can be resolved we shouldn't be removing any citations. Ginjuice4445 (talk) 04:04, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

 Not done: The page is currently protected against editing, so I don't think {{current related}} will be necessary (it's mainly there as a disclaimer that content may change dramatically over time, but the full protection artificially prevents that). The excessive citations concern is probably valid, but I fear that adding it in might distract from the more important discussion of how to write the article, especially the lead sentence, from a neutral point of view. Mz7 (talk) 04:08, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

"Investors" "Cutting Ties" is not supported by the Source Given

From the "2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting" Section:

Despite backlash, the CEO of Gab, Andrew Torka, has maintained that he will do everything in his power to keep the service running, even as investors cut ties.[59]

I think the passage "even as investors cut ties" should be cut, as the idea that the coincident timing seems to be manufactured from somewhere other than the source. Also "Torka's" name is spelled wrong.

I also think that if the Article is going to make a big deal out of the association between the Synagogue Shooter and a Gab Account, it should also list one of the many other major crimes that have been committed by people with a Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, etc.... account, for balance. The impression given is "Only Users of Gab commit heinous crimes", with the secondary message of "Gab causes heinous crimes", which is the current media narrative, given the proximity to the mid-term elections. Unless Wikipedia WANTS to associate Gab with heinous crime, and/or establish a causal relationship, in which case it should do so explicitly. The current bias undermines Wikipedia's credibility on the topic. Either balance the Article, or make the Gab/Crime association explicit.2605:6000:6947:AB00:403D:E24D:E465:4A0 (talk) 02:19, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Okay I figured it out. I took a 2nd look at the source and realized the passage in question "sort of" came from the source's headline, but instead of using the correct word "companies" (referring to Gab's service provider and payment processor severing their relationship), the editor that added the text substituted "investors", completely changing the meaning of the phrase to something that was true but not relevent, to something false and misleading. In fact, the source article explicitly states that people are TRYING to invest despite Gab's difficulties, and listed 3 examples. This, plus the misspelling of Torba's name "Torka" causes me to think vandalism and not well-intentioned error. I'd like to ask a "senior editor" (or whoever can edit a protected page) to read the source, verify that I'm correct and delete the misleading passage.2605:6000:6947:AB00:403D:E24D:E465:4A0 (talk) 03:09, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Research papers assessing Gab's users and content

Greetings fellow Wikipedians,

I have found three pieces of research papers on Arxiv:

• Inside the Right-Leaning Echo Chambers: Characterizing Gab, an Unmoderated Social System
• What is Gab? A Bastion of Free Speech or an Alt-Right Echo Chamber?
• A Quantitative Approach to Understanding Online Antisemitism

Excerpts from their conclusions:

• Gab is a very politically oriented system that hosts known banned users from other social networks.
• The majority of Gab users are conservative, male, and Caucasian. Gab is also crowded by extremist users.
• Posts indicate that, while users support free speech, a small part of the posts not only mirror political views but incorporate hate speech.
• Gab has become an echo chamber for right-leaning content dissemination.
• Hate speech is extensively present on the platform, as we find that 5.4% of the posts include hate words. This is 2.4 times higher than on Twitter, but 2.2 times lower than on 4chan’s Politically Incorrect board (/pol/)
• Gab reacts very strongly to real-world events focused around white nationalism and support of Donald Trump.
• There are several accounts making coordinated efforts towards recruiting millennials to the alt-right.
• We find that, while Gab claims to be all about free speech, this seems to be merely a shield behind which its alt-right users hide.
• the term “kike” shows the greatest increase in use for both /pol/ and Gab, followed by “jew” on /pol/ and “nigger” on Gab.

These findings should be reflected in the lead and in the article. From these findings, I support the inclusion of the word "far-right" in the lead, although phrasing are needed to reflect these findings correctly. Please check these papers out. Thank you. Tsumikiria (T/C) 03:03, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

It says right there that the "majority" of Gab Users are "conservative" (and not "far right"), which is an argument in favor of using the word "conservative". It also describes the content as "right-leaning" and not "far right". Even the titles of the source material describe Gab as "Right-Leaning" and "Alt-Right (Echo Chamber) -OR- "Bastion of Free Speech" and "Unmoderated Social System" (which are both ideologically neutral). And the phrase (crowded by) "extremist users" leaves the political orientation undefined (as there are "left wing" extremists). It also implies that 95.6% of Gab posts are "hate word free", if anyone wants to buy-in to the idea that words can be described in terms of their "hatefulness". I don't. I think the whole idea of censoring language because an politically and ideologically biased non-profit corporation (ADL, SPLC, etc...) says it is, is abhorrent, is patent censorship, and Wikipedia is "not censored", so I reject the whole idea of using the number of "hate words" in order to assess whether or not Gab is "far right", "conservative" or any other adjective describing it's political ideology. 2605:6000:6947:AB00:403D:E24D:E465:4A0 (talk) 03:29, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

The article 'What is Gab? A Bastion of Free Speech or an Alt-Right Echo Chamber?' written by an international group and sponsored by a European grant continually calls Gab alt-right, noting the prevalence of the AltRight hashtag on the network, and noting the most followed people on the network are famous alt-right individuals. This is the clearest source I've seen yet which describes the users on the network. SportingFlyer talk 03:37, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

I do not support the inclusion of "far-right" in the lead. To start, there is no agreed definition or objective standard for deciding what is and is not "far right" or "alt right." Secondly, the article SportingFlyer points to, in particular, doesn't conclude that Gab is an alt-right site. Or at least we shouldn't draw that conclusion from it. Its quantitative conclusions are that "hate words" appear on gab at a rate roughly twice as often as they do on Twitter and roughly half as often as they do on 4Chan, specifically 5.4% of posts.

Does that really allow us to label the site an "alt-right" website, considering 94.6% of posts on Gab don't, quantitatively, contain the extremist language the study measured - and that the same language also appears on Twitter? I don't think it does. Might it be better to say "alt-right posts are more common on Gab than some social media platforms."? Ginjuice4445 (talk) 03:49, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Can a description of the "users on the network" be fairly applied to the network (platform, website, etc...) itself? Is the character of the platform determined only by the political orientation of it's Users? And is the dominant political orientation of a social media platform the very first thing an encyclopedia should mention? It makes more sense to me to say that Gab is a Free Speech platform that just happens to be predominantly "right", than it does to say that Gab is a right-wing platform that just happens to be "Free Speech"? Interested to read what you and others have to say.2605:6000:6947:AB00:403D:E24D:E465:4A0 (talk) 03:55, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

I concur. You should register so you're not plastering your IP all over the Internet. Ginjuice4445 (talk) 04:01, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Lead proposal

I've updated more contents as I read through more. The research papers clearly suggests that Gab's self-purport of "free speech" is an excuse for its alt-right users to hide. Prevalence of hate speech compared to Twitter supports this. (Is 5.7% too low for you?). Alt-right, consisting of neo-nazis, white supremacists and anti-semites, all members of far-right, can be defined as far-right. I said inclusion and phrasing are needed, not directly stating it's far-right. The lead needs to accurately and comprehensively summarize the article. Contents of above papers needs to be added to the article too. I propose the following as lead:

Gab is a social network service based in the US, known for its prominent presence of far-right users. It allows its users to read and write multimedia messages of up to 300 characters, called "gabs", which users may cast upvotes or downvotes.

Created after a preceived "left-leaning Big Social monopoly" by its CEO Andrew Torba in 2016, the site advertises itself as an alternative of Twitter and supporting "free speech", harboring known banned users from other social networks. It has since became an echo chamber for right-leaning content dissemination, with hate speech extensvely present on the platform. Gab's users are predominantly white, conservative male. Its most followed users almost entirely comprised of far-right individuals.

The site is widely described as a "safe haven" for Neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and members of the alt-right. One paper suggests that its claim of "free speech" are "merely a shield behind which its alt-right users hide". The site gained extensive public scrutiny since the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, due to its prepetrator posted conpiracy theory on his active, verified Gab account just prior to the shooting.

--Tsumikiria (T/C) 05:11, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

"The research papers clearly suggests that Gab's self-purport of "free speech" is an excuse for its alt-right users to hide."

This statement seems paranoid and conspiratorial. I've already interpreted most of your source material in another "Talk" section, the primary point being that you choose to ignore the 95% of Gab's Members that engage in "acceptable" speech, and want to make the entire article about the 5% of the Users whose speech has been deemed unacceptable. You also seem to be ignoring a question that I asked (in that other Section) about whether or not it was fair to characterize the entirety of neutral, free speech platform because 5% of it's members have speech that some find objectionable. I will continue to assert that Gab is an "empty vessel" (or whatever other metaphor people may prefer, such as "conduit"), and while the speech of some of it's Users is certainly noteworthy and should be included in the Article, those Users are a small minority, until consensus is achieved on this question. Gab is a corporation that provides a service, the Article is about Gab, and not just about a small minority of it's Users, no matter how extreme or offensive their speech might be.2605:6000:6947:AB00:403D:E24D:E465:4A0 (talk) 09:22, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

"This statement seems paranoid and conspiratorial." - I don't know if it seems that way or not (have you actually looked at it? That is an understatement) but if that's what reliable sources say, it's what we go with. Volunteer Marek 19:19, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

This "paranoid" and "conspiratorial" statement is from a quantitative study of real gab posts. If the alt-right like facts, they should love this. Tsumikiria (T/C) 20:23, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Do not support. Excessive editorializing. My proposal for the lede is below. Ginjuice4445 (talk) 14:52, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Also it might be pertinent to acknowledge that twitter and facebook have a "hate speech" percentage of 3-4% of posts. 2601:982:4200:A6C:D13F:6087:A1B7:A816 (talk) 16:59, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Empty vessel? Small Minority? When Gab's most followed individuals are almost entirely comprised of alt-right figureheads and Neo-Nazi fascists? How is it possible that a mere minority of users promoted these individuals to most influential status on Gab? You are ignoring this important facet. Also are you suggesting that only if a person's speech are entirely 100% hate words can it be counted as a far-right individual? Last time I checked a post containing "Cultural Marxism" - an alt-right conspiracy hoax claiming communist infiltration in public institutions - is among its popular post of the day. How many more evidences does is take to declare that Gab is, a de facto platform for far-right discourse? Since a platform is an "empty vessel", it shall be defined by its users. Can we at least assess a platform in its current form? Tsumikiria (T/C) 18:24, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Twitter is actively combating hate speech, targeted harassment and spam, and encourages users to identify and report such. This is an effort. An effort never shown on Gab. This is supported by the high percentage of hate words and concentration of alt-right users. Have you seen any mainstream celebrity, writer, actor, creator on Gab? I haven't. Only persons like Milo Yiannopoulos and Alex Jones. Tsumikiria (T/C) 18:30, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

I agree with the structure of your thinking, and your characterization of Twitter's policies as an "effort", but differ with your conclusion. Not only can Twitter's "efforts" be characterized as censorship, Gab's absence of those efforts is best characterized as Free Speech. Gab's "efforts" at speech regulation mirrors, to the greatest extent possible, only those restrictions imposed by law (Child Porn, threats of violence, etc...), with some (at least one) exception, with regard to porn. Gab's ToS requires the use of a "NSFW" (Not Safe For Work) tag on posts that contain porn (and possibly other objectionable material, such as scat, snuff, etc...), which then allows Users that have their NSFW filter enabled to not be able to see those posts. This policy evolved after some time due to a significant number of complaints from people that did not want to be "forced" to view these types images by having them appear in their "feed" (not the correct term, but it's the equivalent of Twitter's). I mention all of this to illustrate that the "censorship vs. free speech" aspect of Gab's identity is not dichotomous, "either/or", but is more of a continuous spectrum with "shades of grey". Rather than attempting to prevent it's Users from making speech that offends others (like Twitter's censorship), Gab attempts to provide tools to it's Users that allows them to shield offensive speech from their awareness (such as a "mute button"), and only coercively restricting that speech (censorship) when the Law requires it. Which, overall puts Gab solidly in the "Free Speech" side of the equation. It might look like "censorship" to some, but it's not, is my point. Even long-time, regular Users on Gab make the mistake of assuming that because they've "muted" an account, they have somehow "deleted" account's that speech. It's still visible to everyone, except them. It's a very nuanced distinction that some people have a lot of trouble with.

Your use of the phrase "high percentage of hate words": First and again, I call into question whether or not the ADL/SPLC's method of measuring the quality of "hate" is a valid standard that Wikipedia blindly adopts, and adheres to, particularly given the fact that both of these organization are politically biased. Within that system of measurement, Gab's "Hate words" are 5 point-something percentage compared to Twitters 2 point-something. The word "higher" is valid when comparing this stat to Twitter, but the obverse of your statistic is that Gab's speech is 95% hate-word free (if you think it's fair, and valid to "block" the minimum unit of measure of Gab's speech into posts, vs. breaking it down to the smallest possible unit of "words". For clarity, this "hate word metric" makes the fundamental (and I would say misleading assumption) that if a post (or a Tweet) has 30 words, and one of those words is a "hate word", statistically all 30 of that post's words are are factored into the "hate". Finally, I am compelled to mention that some people, in some cultures, use words that would be considered a "hate word" (such as the "n-word" as a term of endearment, or familiarity, or a friendly jibe. There is a double-standard with regard to the use of some "hate words", and this "hate word metric" fails to take that into account, and lumps all "friendly" use of hate words into the same category of "hate speech", which will then artificially inflate the stats. My primary point being that these words do not mean what you think they mean, for all of the reasons (and probably some more) that I've just mentioned.2605:6000:6947:AB00:403D:E24D:E465:4A0 (talk) 00:02, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

De-platforming alt-right, neo-Nazi and harassers simply means the platform considers them a danger for the rest of their users, their reputation, and revenue. This is corporate freedom, which the conservatives absolutely loved. It also may be considered as a public responsibility. Reliable sources already established that Gab's is using the word "free speech" to draw attention, attract and protect/hide members of the alt-right. There should be no dispute on this. Wikipedia is established through reliable sources, not first-party claims.

95% of the post being so called "hate word free" does not mean they're free from antisemitism and far-right ideologies. This is a misleading defense on your part. This higher occurence is certainly notable. It can be plainly phrased like "Ethnic terms and slurs against jews and people of color is comparably more prevalent on Gab than Twitter, but still at lower occurrence than /pol/. (here goes statistics)"

Tsumikiria (T/C) 01:22, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

How does any of that "improve the Article"? People are saying bad things that you don't like somewhere, and not even the ADL/SPLC can find it or stop it. Now what?Tym Whittier (talk) 03:15, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

clvindiana (T Using the words is vague and citing only a few weak sources.

Protected edit request on 29 October 2018

GoDaddy says Gab violated their TOS and is forcing them to find another provider. This is a notable development and should be reflected.

https://twitter.com/getongab/status/1056708683130781696?s=20 Mbierman 05:06, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

The correct term for this action is "domain name seizure", and this has been done by Registrars in the past, to both the website Stormfront [[4]], as well as The Daily Stormer[Daily Stormer]. Law Enforcement also "seizes" domain names, but I don't know if these are considered the same kind of seizures (seizure by a Registrar vs. seizure by Law Enforcement). I'd like to identify the correct/precise language to use for domain name loss/seizure, and apply it to this Article. At this time, Gab.com has a single message page (meaning not functional), but isitupordown.com says gab.com is still "up". Point being, it's not quite "down" yet.2605:6000:6947:AB00:403D:E24D:E465:4A0 (talk) 13:49, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

 Partly done: The relevant, sourced information has already been mentioned in the article. Please gain consensus for any further changes. Grayfell (talk) 06:17, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Should "free speech" be written with quotes?

Currently, the lede is written: Gab is a far right American social networking service, created as an alternative to Twitter which promotes itself as supporting free speech. The lede wikilinks to an article about the freedom of speech. This is highly misleading. Because what Gab means by "free speech" is not the constitutional right to free speech but a more relaxed content regulation by a private company. It's marketing. The lede should be written with quotes around "free speech." Fluous (talk) 07:02, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Support Gab is appropriating the "free speech" talk which is a extremely common alt-right tactic. Research papers in above section pointed this out as merely a shield for its alt-right users. If you have time, please leave comments on my proposal above. Thank you. Tsumikiria (T/C) 07:15, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Do not support If your point is that because Gab is a private company and not required (by law) to protect the Constitutional rights of it's (presumed) American members, the use of scare quotes does not convey that intended meaning. It conveys a sarcastic, pessimistic bias, i.e. "that's just marketing", with the secondary connotation of "and it's probably false". Gab is in a fight for it's very existance, and as a US Corporation it also has rights, to include Free Speech. While it's Members may or may not have Constitutionally-protected rights on Gab (a matter of legal interpretation that is being wrangled over on this and other platforms), the Free Speech claim also applies to Gab itself. If you want to get into the various and substantive rights issues involved, a separate section in the Gab article would "improve the article", and I would support that. Gab has a right to exist, and convey the speech of it's members, with the full Constitutional protections any corporation (as legally defined by case law as a "person") would have. This is a trade war between a coordinated group of large, and monopolistic companies, and a small corporation with 6 employees. Free Speech (without quotes) absolutely applies.2605:6000:6947:AB00:403D:E24D:E465:4A0 (talk) 08:56, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

^ Does anybody really care what some St. Petersburg IP supports or doesn't support?

No. Volunteer Marek 19:20, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

It's actually standard practice for journalists to write a person or company's claims in quotes. I think this particular sentence actually does do a good job already. It's saying that the company claims to support free speech. But it should be further reinforced by quoting what the company says, not simply stating it as fact. Fluous (talk) 21:02, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

One could also make the exact same claim that Wikipedia's "not censored" clause should always be put in quotes, because it's "just marketing", and also that Wikipedia has "seized" a claim of free speech as a pretext to do something nefarious. Again, it's conspiratorial. Plus you'll need to find a reference that says this explicitly. Do you have a source that supports this line of thinking? Also while I'm at it, people throwing out the "nazi" pejorative, as well as the "St. Petersburg" reference (meaning "russians") undermines an Editor's credibility, shows their bias, and it's just a matter of time before some Admin steps in and cracks heads, so I recommend that it stop.2605:6000:6947:AB00:403D:E24D:E465:4A0 (talk) 23:02, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Support My understanding is "free speech" in the U.S. context means the government can't criminalise you for your speech whereas "free speech" in a business context means the company won't really censor you for your speech. SportingFlyer talk 09:24, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Do not support The company's view of the situation is that "corporate censorship is still censorship" (link). The company has also said that "Our moderation policy mirrors the First Amendment. Our sole objective is to provide all people with a means to exercise the First Amendment, as-written, on the Internet. That means making tough moderation calls - not because we agree with the speech but because we defend 1A." (link) Gab's role and positioning as a free speech platform is supported in numerous references currently in the article. Putting "free speech" in quotation marks implies that this concept is somehow being used dishonestly when in fact it's one of the oldest enlightenment political ideals and is very well understood. See: Free Speech. Ginjuice4445 (talk) 14:34, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Who gives a fuck what a neo-Nazi site's definition of "free speech" is? Volunteer Marek 19:21, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Neo-nazis are the ones who seized the "free speech" label to defend their racist rants. Gab is no different in this approach. Should you call the Democratic People's Republic of Korea a democratic, peoples', republic? Tsumikiria (T/C) 19:29, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Exactly. Volunteer Marek 14:05, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Support, it's important to make clear that we're quoting Gab on this and not stating it in the article voice, since it's a very value-laden statement. --Aquilion (talk) 00:22, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

I still "Do not support", but this is a valid point, i.e. the "Wikipedia's voice" perspective. The problem is, by adopting quotes, that same voice diminishes Gab's position's legitimacy, while leaving them off appears to endorse it. Sometimes quotes are just quoting, and sometimes they are "scare quotes". Perhaps there is some 3rd alternative that avoids both of these bad outcomes.2605:6000:6947:AB00:403D:E24D:E465:4A0 (talk) 01:04, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

• This shouldn't be a vote. Quoting claims is a standard Manual of Style practice. By removing quotation marks, it makes it sounds like objective fact, when it is in fact an POV claim by a person of interest. I suggest we close this discussion. Tsumikiria (T/C) 00:46, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

He doesn't deserve extra legitimacy compared to all other quotes here on Wikipedia per standard practice. This is not a scare quote case. Consider this section closed. Tsumikiria (T/C) 01:49, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Oppose not necessary when it already includes "which promotes itself as supporting", which makes it different from saying "Gab supports free speech". It also looks silly to put quotes around a common term like that. I'm okay with the current version which says 'The site purports itself as an "alternative of Twitter" and "champions free speech".', which seems to come from the longer quote on their website "A social network that champions free speech, individual liberty and the free flow of information online." Morgan Ginsberg (talk) 09:05, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 29 October 2018

safe haven" for Neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and members of the alt-right. This is so so wrong. I speak as a 73-year-old retired nurse who has never been involved in politics and only did so because of the lies upon lies I saw in the MSM. Just read the lies last wek about Tommy Robinson, that he has bought a £1 million house. He hasnt, he BOUGHT a plot many years ago an has BUILT a house on it and rented houses while he did so. Also that he is getting £1million for speaking in USA. Again that is lies. He has been invited & has had his airfare & accommodation paid for. The UK media especially th BBC are LIARS 2A02:C7F:9803:3500:F014:B6CA:1DC3:3876 (talk) 09:47, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

 Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit protected}} template. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:08, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

request an addition

Can the following line be added to the introduction?

As of October 29, 2018, Gab has been taken offline, pending relocation to a new hosting site. MarkAQuinn (talk) 13:01, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Agree except maybe "Gab has taken itself offline, pending relocation to a new hosting provider." Ginjuice4445 (talk) 13:14, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Define "offline". To my perception, "offline" means "totally gone". As of 9:53 a.m., this recently updated message appears:

"Gab has spent the past 48 hours proudly working with the DOJ and FBI to bring justice to an alleged terrorist. Because of the data we provided, they now have plenty of evidence for their case. In the midst of this Gab has been no-platformed by essential internet infrastructure providers at every level. We are the most censored, smeared, and no-platformed startup in history, which means we are a threat to the media and to the Silicon Valley Oligarchy.

Gab isn’t going anywhere.

It doesn’t matter what you write. It doesn’t matter what the sophist talking heads say on TV. It doesn’t matter what verified nobodies say on Twitter. We have plenty of options, resources, and support. We will exercise every possible avenue to keep Gab online and defend free speech and individual liberty for all people.

You have all just made Gab a nationally recognized brand as the home of free speech online at a time when Silicon Valley is stifling political speech they disagree with to interfere in a US election.

The internet is not reality. TV is not reality. 80% of normal everyday people agree with Gab and support free expression and liberty. The online outrage mob and mainstream media spin machine are the minority opinion. People are waking up, so please keep pointing the finger at a social network instead of pointing the finger at the alleged shooter who holds sole responsibility for his actions.

No-platform us all you want. Ban us all you want. Smear us all you want.

You can’t stop an idea.

As we transition to a new hosting provider Gab will be inaccessible for a period of time. We are working around the clock to get Gab.com back online. Thank you and remember to speak freely.

Andrew Torba, CEO Gab.com"

Also, "offline" sounds more "involuntary", and with it's current "status message" it seems more like they "shut it down", so maybe "shut down" would be a better, more accurate word choice. I copied and pasted this directly from gab.com, and have taken a screen shot if anyone wants to see it or use it. The current message is different, and longer than the one from about 12 hours ago (which I do not have).2605:6000:6947:AB00:403D:E24D:E465:4A0 (talk) 15:06, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

 Done —CYBERPOWER (Trick or Treat) 16:15, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

As of 6:05 pm today, the above, italicized message is still live at gab.com. While I agree that something needed to be done quickly to reflect the change in Gab's status, substantive discussion on the use of the word "offline" (vs. "shut down", or something else) has not happened. I think this discussion should continue.2605:6000:6947:AB00:403D:E24D:E465:4A0 (talk) 23:09, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

References

Proposal for second paragraph of lede

Current version:

• Gab has been widely described as a "safe haven" for Neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and members of the alt-right.[9] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] Gab describes itself as "a social network that champions free speech, individual liberty and the free flow of information online." [18][10][19][20][21][22]

Proposed change:

• Gab's moderation policies, which impose few restrictions on speech, have resulted in users who "feel their views are stifled by mainstream sites like Twitter and Facebook" (reference) to migrate from those platforms to Gab. Gab has accordingly been described as both providing a platform for free speech and as being a "gathering point for far right users."

Open to tweaks being made and additional references being put in the relevant places, of course. I think the NPR reference gives the subject really fair treatment. Ginjuice4445 (talk) 14:23, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Gab has no Moderators, and no "moderation policies". It has Terms of Service and that's it, full stop. Gab is not "moderated" in the traditional, online sense of the word. If someone reports a post, it is reviewed by an "invisible someone", and the only action taken is an account deletion, what is commonly called (on Gab) a "ban". Please see my comments on "bans" in another Section.

But Gab will straight-up report you to the FBI if you cross the line, and do something patently, clearly illegal, like threaten the life of the President, etc... Most of their regulatory policies are centered on the idea of "clarity", meaning phrases like "Gas the k***s" is acceptable, but posting the full and correct name of an IRL person, and other information, coupled with a direct threat, will result in an immediate report to Law Enforcement. Many Users are very active in this regard. It's one way of getting rid of someone you don't like. "Moderation" implies that there's "grey area"; that "mushy middle", where people are warned, threatened, temporarily punished, etc... and there isn't any of that on Gab. You're either "in", or you are "out", with no in-between.

I'd be interested in seeing the source that connects the word "moderation" with "Gab". FWIW, I have no problem with the "safe haven" text; I just don't think that's the very first thing that needs to be mentioned in the Lede. That's where I see the bias, and not in the text itself. It's, to a great extent true. Another "type" of Gab User is the straight-up, hard-core, 100% unrepentent troll. They're not actually "Nazis", or "White Supremacists", or anything other than people who like to find out what offends the community the most, and they then adopt the role (or "LARP") as if that's who they are. Trolls are very real, and there are a lot of them on Gab. So if someone has an "ax to grind" and wants to compile a list of all the offensive and terrible people you might find on Gab, "trolls" are a significant demographic worth mentioning, and it would be totally appropriate to mention them, along with all the other deplorables.2605:6000:6947:AB00:403D:E24D:E465:4A0 (talk) 15:31, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

• No. Your rewrite removes any mention of Neo-Nazis and white supremacists, which are extensively covered in the sources and are one of the main reasons the site is notable. --Aquillion (talk) 00:21, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
• No. Per MOS:LEAD Lead should be a concise and conprehensive overview of the article. Like why the article is notable. Descriptions of far-right presence on the site should absolutely be included in the lead. Important facts should not be omitted, else this would be whitewashing. The tragedy should be included too. Tsumikiria (T/C) 01:35, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

They are mentioned. Final sentence. "Gab has accordingly been described as both providing a platform for free speech and as being a 'gathering point for far right users.'" Adding ten different flavors of "far right" as Aquillion proposed adds nothing to the article and violates WP:WEASEL. Ginjuice4445 (talk) 04:30, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

By that reasoning, loading the Lede down with information about a small minority of Gab User's, and ignoring the larger and more of a fundamental issues of a small Social Media Platform doing battle with "Big Tech", you indicate to the Reader that the Article will be all about the Nazis, lions, tigers and bears, oh my, which does not "invite the Reader" to read any further. It's easy to find online content that roundly condemns Gab for all it's evil qualities; people come to Wikipedia for an encyclopedic perspective, and not more of the same. As you yourself stated, it should be a "comprehensive overview", and not seize on one lurid detail, beat it to death, and act like there's nothing left to say about Gab. I've challenged you on several different issues regarding "hate speech", percentages, etc... and thus far you've ignored them. Also "articles" are not "noteable". Gab is what's notable, and not it's "Article". The Lede does not indicate what's notable about the Article, it indicates what's interesting about the topic (Gab) in order to invite the reader to "continue reading". Authoritarian condemnation and self-righteous moralizing does not make the Lede more "inviting". And yes, this is my new, registered account. Tym Whittier (talk) 02:49, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 29 October 2018

The comment below is untrue, GAB mearly is temporarily down and have stated in their Twitter "Gab isn't going anywhere". See <https://twitter.com/getongab/status/1057049325920911361>.

As of October 29, GAB site has been officially closed. Please change the status of it from "Active" to "Closed Down"} 96.245.52.19 (talk) 15:13, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

We're discussing this in another section.2605:6000:6947:AB00:403D:E24D:E465:4A0 (talk) 15:36, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Disagree The site is only temporarily down. Ginjuice4445 (talk) 04:34, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

 Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit extended-protected}} template. Grayfell (talk) 06:14, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 29 October 2018

One single instance of 'Torka' to be changed to 'Torba'. (Name was mispelled, ctrl + f for location) 2A02:1811:C0C:8900:1586:5CBF:C91:203F (talk) 20:47, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

 Done Mz7 (talk) 21:35, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

I raised this issue in another section, along with a 2nd and more serious issue, where an Editor has replaced the word "companies" taken from the headline of the source article, and replaced it with the word "investors", which conveys meaning that is exactly the opposite of what the sourced Article said. The sourced Article explicitly states that, rather than severing ties with Gab, they are actually trying to invest in Gab, despite it's current problems. Meaning that, while "Big Tech" is trying to shut Gab down, average people ("investors") are trying to support Gab with their money. This is a gross error (vs. a "typo"), and may have been deliberate vandalism. Could you please look into this, and make the appropriate corrections? Also, as a general aside, the "David vs. Goliath" (small, 6 person company vs. large, multinational corporations operating in a coordinated manner) aspect of this story is being completely ignored by this Article, despite source material that supports it.2605:6000:6947:AB00:403D:E24D:E465:4A0 (talk) 23:17, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Possible source, maybe future article

Reason Magazine - Gab Dumped by Tech Companies Over Synagogue Shooter Posts but Twitter, Facebook, and Other Social-Media Giants Get a Pass https://reason.com/blog/2018/10/29/gab-shuts-down-after-synagogue-shooting

D.Creish (talk) 21:37, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

This is a non-WP:RS which also appears to fail WP:NPOV, I would not include it in the article. SportingFlyer talk 23:33, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

This source has an image with hammer and sickles and logos of other tech giants photoshopped together. It virtually screams conserative bias. Not recommendable as a source. Tsumikiria (T/C) 23:45, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

...the magazine's contributors included Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, Murray Rothbard, Thomas Szasz and Thomas Sowell.[[5]]

Those are some credible and heavy-duty contributors. They just happen to be conservative.2605:6000:6947:AB00:403D:E24D:E465:4A0 (talk) 01:21, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

• That's, at best, a WP:NEWSBLOG. Even if you feel that Reason's non-blog sections would pass WP:RS, that one definitely doesn't. --Aquillion (talk) 00:19, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Reason is an American libertarian monthly magazine published by the Reason Foundation. The magazine has a circulation of around 50,000 and was named one of the 50 best magazines in 2003 and 2004 by the Chicago Tribune.

It's solidly a "monthly magazine" that was founded in 1968.

"Reason was founded in 1968 by Lanny Friedlander"

Not saying it's "reliable" by Wikipedia standards, however I am saying it's reliability has not been "debunked" by the previous statements. You'll have to do more research, and actually prove the point.2605:6000:6947:AB00:403D:E24D:E465:4A0 (talk) 01:21, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

This assumes all sources are reliable until they are "debunked," when in fact the opposite is true - if you think this is a WP:RS, you'll have to argue for it. SportingFlyer talk 01:56, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

• Sorry my hasty comment caused confusion. Reason is indeed a respected magazine but the short blog post I linked is interesting but marginal. I meant to suggest we watch, in case it develops into a fuller article. D.Creish (talk) 02:44, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

I get the general idea that a "blog post" has less credibility than a full-on magazine article. Does the author's credibility enter into the equation? Is this author credible, and if so, does her credibility allow us to use content from her blog post?Tym Whittier (talk) 02:54, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Notice of outside canvassing

The official account of Gab.com (@getongab) has retweeted this post to its 150,000 followers:

Even @Wikipedia is spreading false information about @getongab. Its astonishing the level cowardice displayed by the tech and social media industries. @realDonaldTrump its time to start enforcing anti-monopoly and anti-trust laws.

The tweet displays the preview of Gab's Wikipedia page: [6].

--K.e.coffman (talk) 00:27, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

They can paint themselves as victim and blame Wikipedia's "liberal bias" all they want. That reminds me that we should add Conservapedia to the see also section. They're birds of a feather. Tsumikiria (T/C) 00:57, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Note the image (of Wikipedia's Lede) in the tweet is hidden behind the following message:

"This media may contain sensitive material. Your media settings are configured to warn you when media may be sensitive."

Would the "average person" consider an image of the Lede of this Article "sensitive material" that needs to be hidden? Just something for people to consider before substantively engaging in the "Gab vs. Twitter", "censorship vs. free speech" discussions here.2605:6000:6947:AB00:403D:E24D:E465:4A0 (talk) 01:36, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Strawman, irrelevant discussion. Sensitive material means many users has reported the user in question. This is part of twitter's quality filter. Stop painting things unders misleading light.Tsumikiria (T/C) 01:42, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

What you've just done is introduced the idea that content is censored on Twitter, not just by a standard applied to the content, but also because the person that posted it has been reported by others. So, not just the content on Twitter censored, but the people are too. That doesn't happen on Gab, because Gab supports Free Speech, and is against censorship (just like Wikipedia).Tym Whittier (talk) 02:58, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not censored, but this is because our goal is to build an encyclopedia. Wikipedia is not a platform for unrestricted free speech and content which interferes with that goal can be removed. This includes offensive material. Twitter and Gab are both social network sites, but Wikipedia is explicitly not a social network by policy. Unless reliable sources discuss Twitter's weird "sensitive material" algorithm as it relates to Gab, this is a distraction, at best. Grayfell (talk) 05:51, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Reducing protection?

A request has been made on my user talk page to reduce the protection level on this article to semi-protection, which would allow most registered users to edit the article again. I originally protected the article because there was a content dispute causing many reverts from multiple users. Most of those users seem to be participating on this talk page now. Can I trust that the article won't descend into a series of back-and-forth reverts if I reduce the protection level a few days early? Mz7 (talk) 01:25, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

I would go with "extended confirmed"; please see #Notice of outside canvassing above. --K.e.coffman (talk) 01:36, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

I wouldn't trust it, and keep it protected the full number of days. Lots of newish contributors here. SportingFlyer talk 01:50, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Which I think the ECP would resolve. Also pinging @Mz7:. --K.e.coffman (talk) 01:52, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

I agree with SportingFlyer. There haven't been many edit requests which suggests no urgent issues. If readers need the latest developments they can read the Washington Post. D.Creish (talk) 02:42, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

I use Wikipedia because I trust it to present the facts without the hard-core left-wing bias of media like the "Washington Post". It's not Wikipedia's mission, but I'd be willing to bet a significant number of people come here for this reason.Tym Whittier (talk) 03:08, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

• Support reduction to extended confirmed There are quite a few suggested ameliorations that are unaddressed, most of them without the edit request tag. I reckon that going to a lower level would allow experienced editors to help sort it out while avoiding a shitshow. The page can always be re-protected if this happens to be untrue. Acebulf (talk) 03:23, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

 Done. I'm inclined to give extended confirmed a try as a middle-ground solution. The hope is that this will allow small improvements to go through while the more controversial ones that may be liable to edit-warring remain under discussion. Mz7 (talk) 04:00, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Feelings over Knowledge

This article reads ridiculous. Gab's proposal is to be an "unfiltered" community. The alt-right - whatever you consider it to be - might be more present and even constitute the main demographic of the website, but that's a CONSEQUENCE of its unfiltered nature, so people who weren't accepted elsewhere flee to the platforms they have available. The site itself is not promoting all the political discourse one may find on the website.

I suggest rewriting the article in a neutral way, describing its normal Twitter-like features and the fact that it's supposed to be Twitter, but unfiltered. THEN, add a sentence to the end (on the introduction text) explaining that the site receives heavy criticism because of the big influx of alt-righters migrating from other platforms. Make an entire section about it, name it "Alt-right overtake", "Controversy", whatever you want. Go all out, but on the appropriate, self-contained section. Can you imagine opening up some page about an actor and read "Mr. So-and-so is a rapist and sexual predator[1][2][3][4][5] known for so-and-so controversy. He is also an actor.

That's what you're doing, I don't think "reliable" sources should override the site's self-declared purpose. Just list it separately. Also, I agree with keeping it locked, since it's definitely a hot-topic prone to flamewars. Just hope people editing it have the maturity to use the lock as a way to protect information, not a political bias.187.122.125.147 (talk) 02:37, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Your first few paragraphs raise good points which we can address within policy, see WP:NPOV. D.Creish (talk) 02:57, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

I agree with all of that, however the Article is going to be written via consensus. That "vision" is an ideal that isn't going to happen. I'll also mention that it's widely believed, and there may be some real evidence to support the idea, that there is a direct relationship between "Moderation" and "Leaning Left". Unmoderated forums always lean right, and moderated forums always lean left. So the idea that Gab is somehow "special" because it has a higher number of right-wingers than what would find on an unmoderated forum is not JUST because of Gab itself. This type of dynamic is found in every online community. The greater the level of moderation, the more it moves left. Less moderation, and it moves right. None of this is really applicable to the Article, but it's good to be aware of it because of all the claims that there is some "invisible racist quality X" that makes Gab somehow inherently "right wing". It's unmoderated, and that's just what naturally happens, everywhere.Tym Whittier (talk) 03:05, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

• Wikipedia summarizes topics in proportion to reliable sources. Per policy, we are not a platform for public relations, so the site's self-declared purpose is has no special privilege here. We use reliable sources to decide which aspects are defining traits, not editors. If reliable sources emphasize the ideology of the site's users above and beyond the site's technical details, WP:NPOV says that the article will follow. As for moderation being inherently leftist, that's an interesting claim, but without clearly defined terms it's too simple to take at face value. Without a reliable source explicitly tying this to Gab, it's WP:OR anyway. Grayfell (talk) 03:21, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Lead proposal 2

Alright, fellow Wikipedians. I've rewrote the lead once again using Conservapedia as an example.

Gab is an English-language social network service. It allows its users to read and write multimedia messages of up to 300 characters, called "gabs". The website was created by Andrew Torba in 2016 to counter what he preceive as "left-leaning Big Social monopoly [sic]" in other social media platforms. The site purports itself as an "alternative of Twitter" and "champions free speech".

Gab has attracted migration of known banned users from other social networks, most of whom members of the far right. Gab reached 465,000 users in April 2018, a majority of which are white, conservative males. Many of Gab's most followed users are prominent far-right individuals, including Richard B. Spencer, Mike Cernovich, and Alex Jones.

Gab has attracted heavy criticism, described as "extremist friendly" or a "safe haven" for Neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and alt-right. Gab's self-promotion of "free speech" has been criticised in research articles as "merely a shield behind which its alt-right users hide", and "an echo chamber for right-leaning content dissemination". The site gained extensive public scrutiny since the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, as the attack's perpetrator maintained a verified account on Gab. On October 29, 2018, after a backlash from hosting providers, Gab took themselves offline, pending relocation to a new hosting site.

Hopefully this will be towards WP:NPOV. Other new contents from the papers can go to the article body. Thank you. Tsumikiria (T/C) 03:48, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

I've copy edited it extensively to clean up typos and punctuation. I have no opinion on whether it gets used or not. SportingFlyer talk 05:13, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. I've taken the liberty to push this rewrite to the article based on WP:NOW. I will begin supplement the rest of the article. Thanks. Tsumikiria (T/C) 05:48, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Regarding "Big Social", Torba's idiosyncratic capitalization is, presumably, a play on Big Oil and the Big Pharma conspiracy theory, etc. Using a [sic] seems like editorialize against MOS:SIC, and if this quote is really confusing enough to need this clarification, we should find a better quote.

As for the academic sources, as I tried to explain above, I'm hesitant to lean too hard on these studies by themselves. I would much rather summarize third-party sources for studies like this, but perhaps I'm being over-cautious.

I also feel like "attracted heavy criticism" is a filler. We can just say that "Gab has been described as..." no?

Whether or not Gab took itself offline or was kicked off by its hosts is debatable, but we can wait for more clarity from sources.

Otherwise, this seems fine to me. Grayfell (talk) 06:21, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

While my personal opinion is that he is clearly delusional, this quote appears fine to me, at least now. Academic sources supplements media source, I think they add more verifiability.

I don't know which phrasing it deserves, but let's go for the concise one. Thank you. Tsumikiria (T/C) 07:01, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

References

Hey, Tsumikiria, I think that reads very reasonable now; it does dedicate a lot of space to external opinion of Gab, rather than its "mission" or technical side, but, as mentioned by Grayfell, these topics are pretty much all the media has been talking about, so I think it's fair enough. I don't know if anonymous users have any say in this, but since it's under a discussion section I opened, I'd just like to leave my aye here to this proposed edit. 187.122.125.147 (talk) 06:42, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. Anonymous users are welcomed to share opinions of Articles on Wikipedia. If you have more materials to add, me and Greyfell or other editors should be able to help. Tsumikiria (T/C) 07:01, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Disagree Too long and does not provide the free speech perspective, only the critical perspective. This article is getting more and more biased. Ginjuice4445 (talk) 01:11, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Not based in Philadelphia

The article currently says that Gab is based in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Inquirer contradicts this, stating that "[a] Gab spokesperson wrote in an email that the company is no longer based in Philadelphia". TypoBoy (talk) 03:06, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

I have edited the "History" section to reflect this. I'll edit the infobox and categories too. TypoBoy (talk) 13:09, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

References

Protected edit request on 30 October 2018

Minor change: Remove the spaces in between the references in the first paragraph, especially after "and members of the alt-right." where about 10 references are provided with spaces in between them. Acebulf (talk) 03:18, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

 Done Mz7 (talk) 03:43, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 30 October 2018

Add an image of the notice on the home page of Gab.com that the site is down.

File:Gab homepage notice.jpg

Gab.com Homepage Notice

Dirk Strauss (talk) 07:12, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Presently I don't know what to do with this. This is clearly full of delusional far-right rhetorics and I think we might be accidentally endorsing this if we include it in the article. I would be cautious. I guess no. Tsumikiria (T/C) 07:36, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

No per WP:NOTNEWS. Also a likely copyright violation. SportingFlyer talk 08:50, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

We include things in the article if those things are notable, full stop. We have an article about Hitler, does that mean we endorse Hitler? The image of Gab being shut down would be fine to post, it has been mentioned in sources and including it would be fair use. Fnordware (talk) 20:55, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

 Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit extended-protected}} template. The image has been deleted from the Wikimedia Commons because the Commons does not accept fair use images. As it was just an image of text, I would suggest we could also just include quoted material from the notice if we wish to include it all. Mz7 (talk) 23:24, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Thank You

I just wanted to thank everyone here who pushed for this article to reclaim its Neutral Point of View. I also want to thank anyone who was pushing their sincerely held beliefs, but were willing to compromise and give equal weight to different perspectives. I imagine everyone here is aware that most of today's news media has little interest in neutrality. People (including me) love to hear their own beliefs repeated back to them, so the media is supplying slanted content to cater to that desire in their search for ratings/clicks. This means most of our reliable sources are no longer neutral, so we can't just get one source and assume that NPOV will be maintained. The only solution I can see is that we have to always get several sources from different perspectives and represent them all in our articles. On one hand it is a sad time for journalism, but on the other hand it makes NPOV in Wikipedia more important now than ever before. Fnordware (talk) 18:04, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

It's not "there" yet, IMO. Better, but not "there".Tym Whittier (talk) 00:11, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

If by "there" you mean we have to erase any mention of white supremacist membership and state up front that Gab is a completely innocent angel of free speech human rights etc, please, no. Tsumikiria (T/C) 02:56, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 30 October 2018

(This is my first time-out trying to do a "protected edit request".)

Please consider rearranging the text in the "Revenue" so that the text:

In July 2017 Gab also started an investment project which met its goal of $1.07 million on August 19, 2017.

is featured more prominently. I note the line:

On August 15, 2017, Torba announced plans for its own cryptocurrency, expecting Gab to be subject to "blacklisting" by third-party payment processors.

...gets it's own, "standalone line" (and it should, since it's distinct from everything else), but ONE MILLION DOLLARS is a BIG DEAL, and not an "after thought" appended to a paragraph.

In general, there's a contrasting counter-narrative to the Gab story, which is that, despite the condemnation and vitriol, average people are willing to support Gab with their MONEY. That's one aspect of the "David vs. Goliath" story that isn't being told here.

Second, there used to be a sourced quote, that was actually mis-quoted, describing how, despite the controversy, people are still willing to donate money and/or "buy in" to Gab. The heart of the story was that people were frustrated that they were unable give money to Gab (I assume donate), but that Torba was unavailable. The story listed 4 anecdotal examples of real people to support it's assertion. The original quote replaced the word "companies" with "investors", completely changing the meaning of the quoted text. My point is that if the source was reliable enough to be misquoted and cast Gab in a negative light, that same source can be used to provide balance to the Article now. People still support Gab, and want to give it money, is the point.

Money is the most reliable indicator of public support. Talk is cheap, and anyone can run their mouth online, and any lazy "journalist" can then cherry-pick through those opinions and create the illusion that Gab is being universally condemned. This advances the ideological Left's narrative, and it costs nobody anything, in fact the "journalists" then get paid. Money is the sincerest and most-reliable indicator of public support, and the fact that Gab has received, and continues to receive substantial financial support from the America grass roots is something that should be "reported" in Wikipedia. (I know Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and not a news outlet, but I can't think of a better word than "report". Also the use of the word "story" feels "off", but again I haven't got a better word.)Tym Whittier (talk) 00:36, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Is dailydot the source for the quote? SportingFlyer talk 01:35, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

No. This is undue weight to a POV narrative. The implication that this is and we should write this as a "Davis vs. Goliath" situation is at best, a fairy tale. Gab is ignoring the fact that the companies that it claims to censor them is under immense public pressure and making their decisions under the principles of a free-market economy. This is stated in the DailyDot source as well. Just because one believe their continuous effort in polishing themselves to be a victim of a "coordinated conspiracy" doens't make it true and make it an obligation for Wikipedia to follow. One million is something, but their nonresponse to backers and refusal to talk to non-conservative source should be noted too. I will edit the article to improve it. But "David vs. Goliath"? No. Tsumikiria (T/C) 02:36, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

• There is obviously no consensus for this, so:  Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit extended-protected}} template..

We have no idea how many people are willing to put their money where there mouths are (or were). Trying to calculate this, and then using that calculation to indicate public support, would be blatant WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. If sources directly discuss this, let's see them. The Verge source cited in the article itself cites this source from The Outline. It's worth a read, as it demonstrates how incredibly convoluted this is. It's not the same as pledging to a kickstarter. The source also shows the outer-edges of Gab's purported commitment to transparency, which is also mentioned in The Daily Dot article. A crowdfunding campaign with a thousand participants is not significant just because THE AMOUNT OF MONEY IS TYPED IN CAPITALS. Gab has since moved into STOs, which are the new flavor of Initial coin offerings, but Gab is, apparently (?) still waiting on regulatory approval. As one of the major stakehoulders has dropped out of the company, I imagine that's not going to happen anytime too soon. So Gab is combining the complexity of venture finance with the complexity, and instability, of cryptocurrency, and the company is asking for its users to participate. Looking at Gab's StartEngine campaigns, there just doesn't seem like that many people. If we had a reliable, non-primary source which explains all this, I would be thrilled, but I haven't seen one which I trust. Grayfell (talk) 03:59, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Well, then, would it improve the Article if some of these complexities were introduced. Maybe not the "future funding" aspect, but:

I've always assumed that the 1+ million dollars was cash by average people, but based on what you've posted it sounds like the means of donations are more complicated than that. Was that million dollars real? I've heard of places like Patreon, and that other one, and have always wondered if it was just a "commitment to donate", vs. money in the bank. The donation method used would be nice to know, as I don't. Also I appreciate your introduction of the metric of "money to donors" ratio, as I agree that would be a really good indicator of mass support vs. a handful of moneyed investors. I don't know if your 1000 people (donating $1,000 each) was an actual figure, or a hypothetical to make the point, but if for example it was 10,000 people donating $10.00 each, that's very different in terms of public support, than say for example, 10 people each donating $100,000. I think including that information, if available, would be interesting. The whole cryptocurrency thing is lost on me. I have no clue, other than some basic knowledge about BitCoin, and did not intend to advocate in favor of getting into the apparent morass. The way you describe it seems "Ponzi-ish", and if that's the case, that information would also be good to include. Also I did not know that a "major stakeholder" withdrew their support, unless you mean Ekrem Bu-what's-his-name. His current financial relationship to Gab as it is now would also be interesting. Does he own shares, or something? Did he lose them when he left? etc...Tym Whittier (talk) 04:57, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

If I found a reliable source which supported that this was a Ponzi scheme, I would include it in the article. I'm not an expert, and I don't know for sure, but I don't think it's anything like that.

1,000 was not hypothetical. Per the Daily Dot source, the number of investors at the time the first crowd-funding campaign closed was 1,264. The StartEngine page currently lists 1,001 and slightly higher money, which was probably just the dust settling as unqualified investors were removed or dropped-out. The SEC has limits to how much people can invest based on their income or net worth, to prevent naive investors from losing their life savings. If this doesn't seem fair, well, think of it like a driver's license. The idea is that there needs to be some way to make sure people know what they are getting into and are taking sober risks, because at this level of finance, innocent people will suffer the consequences if things go wrong (think Enron or Pyramid schemes in Albania).

Again, I recommend reading the Outline source, as it's a useful perspective which explains a lot of this better than I can. Per the Outline source from last year, Ekrem Büyükkaya owned about 28% of common stock, with Torba owning 67%. I don't know what it is now. The source also describes a million dollars as a "seed round", implying that it's a quantity of money a wealthy, informed investor would put into company early on in its history, with the understanding that it's comparatively risky. It is also the maximum that a company can raise per year in this way under this law (the JOBS Act, through the crowdfunding exemption movement). This isn't the maximum they can raise at all, just through crowd-funded investments. These are not donations, they are investments. Of course, if the company goes under, it won't make much of a difference to the "investors".

Like I said, it's incredibly convoluted. The blockchain stuff is especially complex (you might even call it... cryptic) but there are a serious lack of reliable sources which are also knowledgeable about the ins-and-outs of this tech. To avoid WP:OR, we really would need a reliable source explaining this. There are some mentioning this, but I do not trust any of the outlets. From what I've read, Torba is also skeptical of this technology, which is why they went with STOs instead of easier, and sketchier, ICOs. Again, we need a decent source to even consider including this in the article. Grayfell (talk) 05:53, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Idea just occurred to me. Isn't there substantive information on-file with the SEC? Isn't it publically available? Assume it's considered reliable. All that information regarding shares, etc... would be interesting to include in the Article. I still think ONE MILLION DOLLARS should be in all caps, and with glitter around it. 1,000 people donating 1,000 dollars each seems substantive and interesting. Is there a reason why it can't/shouldn't be included?Tym Whittier (talk) 01:45, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Because it could also be 999 people each contributing $1 and one person (perhaps Torba himself) giving $999,001. A sum of money and a number of people is fact. A sum of money, each people giving a specific amount isn't, because there isn't, and perhaps may never will, be a reliable source to support this claim. And without such a support, this is original thought, which belong better to a social media, than an encyclopedia. "Any analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to reach or imply a conclusion not stated by the sources", is WP:OR. It is understandable that you think Gab is a victim and should be praised with CAPITALS and glitters. But you also have to be informed that, Wikipedia is not a place to seek justice, or truth. Tsumikiria (T/C) 02:28, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Article neutrality

no specific issues or solutions offered by one-off editor
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Obvious Liberal Bias & Smear Campaign vs Gab Throughout Article. The whole page is rife with smear campaign tactics and strawman arguments to portray Gab as some sort of neo-nazi hate platform just because a TINY percentage of the user base is "alt-right". By that logic Google and Twitter should also be labeled as such because they also have tiny percentages of such users. The whole article has SERIOUS author bias and POV issues! The page needs to be redone with a more NEUTRAL POV. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:1C0:6C00:2950:E8E9:6089:F035:75FA (talk) 07:29, 31 October 2018 (UTC) — 2601:1c0:6c00:2950:e8e9:6089:f035:75fa (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Gab SEC filings

Take a look at page 20:

Our Market and Industry We welcome everyone, but see a unique opportunity to carve a niche in a massively underserved and unrepresented market. We estimate that there are over 50 million conservative, libertarian, nationalist, and populist internet users from around the world who are seeking an alternative to the current social networking ecosystems. These users are also actively seeking alternative media platforms like Breitbart.com, DrudgeReport.com, Infowars.com, and others. Through November 26, 2017 alone, Breitbart.com had over 2.2 billion page views from around the world. As mainstream social networks continue to crack down on "objectionable content" and censor conservative views, we believe the need for alternative platforms will only continue to rise. We believe the trend of "cutting the cord" will continue as the popularity of streaming content over the internet increases. We believe this will also begin a fragmentation process of the social networking ecosystem into smaller niche communities with shared values and ideals.

These admissions seem rather revealing about its intended market. I'm not sure what to do with this information, but it certainly helps complete the picture. And it's certainly at odds with what's written in the lede. Fluous (talk) 05:15, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

This would be a goldmine since they had to reveal honestly to their investors. I am reading this new piece: From Silicon Valley elite to social media hate: The radicalization that led to Gab by WaPo, also mentioning this, among other important thing like Archived twitter link to Gab's now-deleted antisemetic and racist-leaning tweets and aspects of about Torba's life, which will definitely improve the article once included. Thank you. Tsumikiria (T/C) 05:47, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

I suggest the following additions, to be added in Users or a separate subsection:

In a filing to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in early 2018, Gab declared its target market was the "over 50 million conservative, libertarian, nationalist, and populist" worldwide internet users, and listed far-right conspiracy theorist websites Breitbart News and InfoWars as its main competitors.

---

Gab's twitter account, which Torba admitted as often written by himself, had posted anti-immigrant and anti-semitic contents which the Washington Post noted as "raise questions about whether they cross the line into impropriety". In response to a tweet calling for the abolishment of borders, the account quote-replied: "Let a bunch of Somalians migrate to your neighborhood and see if you change your mind."

In another noted occurrence, the account posted pictures of two observant Jew men, with the text: "These two guys show up at your front door. Who do you let in and who do you call the cops on?", "I mean I’m calling the cops on both and getting my shotgun ready, just saying."

Torba initially denied the authenticity of said postings, before dismissing it as "clearly satire/comedy" and means of promoting "importance of free expression". In a later tweet, the account declared the tweets as "few edgy tweets posted by interns". The tweets are since deleted by the account.

Tsumikiria (T/C) 08:21, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Update: One of the man in the second tweet's pictures appears to be Ken White, writer of the website Popehat. This should definitely be noted. Shall I contact him for more source? Tsumikiria (T/C) 08:39, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Disagree Breitbart is not a "far-right conspiracy theorist website." This article is totally out of control. Ginjuice4445 (talk) 01:08, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

It should only be noted to the extent that it's noted in reliable sources. Maybe the four-author Washington Post article could be used to mention the tweets, but the bit about Popehat is getting lost in the weeds. Look at what reliable sources are saying as a whole, and summarize. Only use primary sources for necessary details, with attribution when possible. As a blogger, White's publications are of limited value to this article. He's certainly an expert on law, but anything he told you would be WP:OR, and unusable. If you think he knows of existing published reliable sources, that would be another reason to contact him. Otherwise, using Pophat's photo is just more social media noise from someone who's entire public persona is making social media noise. Grayfell (talk) 03:52, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Do not inject comments into the middle of other people's comments, as it makes it far too difficult to follow conversations. See WP:TPG.

As for the compaint, see WP:BREITBART. Breitbart is far-right, and is not a credible source for factual information according to an overwhelming number of tedious discussions on Wikipedia. Is it a "conspiracy theorist website"? Meh. In that context, listing that as a defining trait is editorializing, but it ain't wrong. Grayfell (talk) 04:00, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

References

Second notice of outside canvassing

Several hours ago Gab's Twitter account posted this to its 150,000 followers:

This is not going to age well.

The tweet displays a cropped screenshot of Gab's Wikipedia mobile page: [7].

One possible instance of this canvassing effort [8] has been deterred thanks to User:Fluous. We need to be more vigilant. I've added Template:recruiting to warn possible WP:MEAT. <redacted> Tsumikiria (T/C) 01:26, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Guys, Wikipedia is not the place for activism. That's what Twitter and Facebook are for. If you can't be objective, maybe you should start a blog. Fnordware (talk) 03:16, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Remove quote from CEO?

I'm not sure why this is the second sentence in the lead:

• The website was created by Andrew Torba in 2016 to counter what he perceived as "left-leaning Big Social monopoly" in other social media platforms.

The CEO is non-notable, and the placement of the quote gives too much weight to the company's view of itself. Feedback? --K.e.coffman (talk) 01:48, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Support I now regret adding this. This is undue weight and without the quote the whole sentense can be omitted. Tsumikiria (T/C) 01:53, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, just change it, T. Fluous (talk) 01:56, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

This is madness. A statement by the founder of the company is not notable enough to appear in the article about that company? Even though it was sourced? He is not notable enough to have his own article, but he certainly can and should be quoted here. Fnordware (talk) 03:15, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

WP:ABOUTSELF places specific limits on what we can cite someone's own words for; this is clearly a self-serving statement, so we'd need a secondary source to back it up. Beyond that, weight is assessed based on prominence in reliable sources (and how mainstream or high-quality those sources are); random quotes by an article's subject or the like don't automatically get any weight if there's no evidence that that particular quote attracted attention. Wikipedia isn't the place for people to uplift quotes they personally feel are important, meaningful, illuminating and so on - we're an encyclopedia, so we're supposed to provide a summary of what the best sources say. --Aquillion (talk) 03:59, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

But this is not an article about the CEO, it's an article about the company. Also per WP:ABOUTSELF the publisher of the article was not the CEO, i.e. it was not self-published. It is absolutely relevant and needed given the article's current one-sided slant. Fnordware (talk) 01:58, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

We were only talking about removing this mention from lede, since it is already covered in the first sentence of the first section of this article. Who and when created this can easily be seen in the infobox, and their claims are already established in the lead as well. Tsumikiria (T/C) 03:34, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Self-description in the lead.

It's important to be cautious about how we describe Gab in the first paragraph of the lead. We can mention its description of itself (as reported in reliable secondary sources), but that has to be coupled with a paraphrase of the rest of what what those secondary sources say on the topic - it's misleading to present one without the other when the secondary coverage that disagrees with its self-description is so overwhelming. --Aquillion (talk) 04:14, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Agree. With that in mind, I added "best known for..." and reordered the lead as shown here. For example, how many characters are in a "gab" was the least important piece of information in there. K.e.coffman (talk) 04:30, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

I don't necessarily think this reorder is needed, as we just resolved an edit request to rewrite the lead. We need more comment input. We have all the necessary parts for lead, but reordering will be tricky. Having the shooting and offline part is needed, by having them on second paragraph is a bit WP:RECENTISM, I moved it to bottom. Plus, we should paraphrase, not directly quoting the company's target market statement. The current 2nd, 3rd paragraph can merge together, as they're both about its users. Tsumikiria (T/C) 05:36, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

why was article written in past tense when Gab had temporary downtime?

So gab was temporarily down for a few days as it maintained its service and switched hosting and domain service providers. My question is: who changed the article to past tense, and what was the reason? It seemed like some sort of sophist attempt at misinformation. Gab still existed it was just temporarily down - this was repeated frequently through gabs twitter communication channel. So why was this article written as if gab was gone? Do we put the same standard to google services whenever they go down? Youtube was down for an entire day many times through its existence including last week. Did the guy (who wrote the entire gab article in past tense) also change YouTube’s article to past tense? No because it wouldn’t be allowed. So why was it allowed on gabs article? Wikipedia’s attempt on stopping bias starts when it stops the people injecting their bias into articles. If gab says it is temporarily down, you don’t go and change the entire article to past tense to insinuate it is gone forever. That is pure misinformation and makes Wikipedia look like a megaphone for propaganda pushers. Article is now in present tense but it shouldn’t change going forward since Gab is clearly not gone. Megat503 (talk) 00:08, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Obviously because the Wikipedians working on this article have forgotten about Neutral Point of View and were applying their wishful thinking. The article is once again heavily slanted. At least everything appears to be sourced, but there is precious little from a non-Leftist point of view. Fnordware (talk) 01:54, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

It was changed to past tense presumably because we didn't know if it will, and how long it would take for them to find a provider. Maybe a week but maybe a month if they struggle at that. For that time being, to most editors past tense would seem to be more suitable. Plus, the lead already says they're "pending relocation". Nobody is insinuating it is gone.

Also, Wikipedia is not obliged to favor claims from entities of question, no matter what and how loud they paint themselves to be, and even if you sincerely believe their claims. If a torrent of points from a tremendous amount of reliable sources are available, we are not obliged to give undue weight to minority points that are already established somewhere in the article. Nor should we use special wording to alter or alleviate what the sources provides to remedy any perceived POV. Tsumikiria (T/C) 03:29, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Stop deleting content from the Talk page

There is far too much deleting of other people's comments on this Talk page. Removing Talk content should be very rare, and only done for one of the specific reasons mentioned in WP:TALKO. I have never seen editors with so much disregard for Wikipedia guidelines. Fnordware (talk) 02:18, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi, @Fnordware: Other people's comments aren't being "deleted." Talk page sections here are automatically archived by an archive bot after a period of inactivity. You can find older discussions by clicking the archive link at the top of the page. Fluous (talk) 04:14, 5 November 2018 (UTC)