Gab Says It Won’t Comply With Congressional Record Requests

Photo: Jose Luis Magana (dpa)

This week’s gab scent is in, and another regime crashes in the wake of the platform’s offensives (usually emails). The destination of the newest screed: the special committee to investigate the January 6 protests in the United States Capitol. Congratulations to Congress, you are a Gab certified figure of authority.

Last week, Gab released a letter from Congress requesting a record of posts and messages related to electoral disinformation, planning a riot, violent domestic extremism, and overseas plans to influence elections. You’d also like to see what Gab did with regards to users who promoted the riot (communication with law enforcement and moderation efforts if any), internal communication about the riot, and law enforcement requests for evidence, among other things, among other things. In other words, this is a standard request for a committee investigating a riot.

Misinformation trader and Gab CEO Andrew Torba says Congress, in a line-by-line reply that it should be poking around elsewhere. He says Gab does not track misinformation or disinformation, has no retention policies, does not keep a record of internal discussions about insurgency issues, and has no way of knowing if an account is held by a foreign government. (He says Gab once found an alleged foreign government account, but only because Christopher Krebs’ attorney notified the company. He adds that it secured the account for law enforcement and then blocked it.) Torba argues that It cannot turn over any private communications that it sent to law enforcement agencies under the Recorded Communications Act (SCA).

Congress might consider using JaXpArO hackers who could easily retrieve records from 31,000 groups, 4 million accounts and 39 million posts. The content allegedly shows (it was selectively shared with journalists and researchers) an extensive list of white nationalist and conspiratorial users. News showed Gab CEO Andrew Torba recruitment Anti-Semites and violent user threats in the chat logs like “@ 666666: Just so you know, I’m going to terrorize and burn down some Democrat places. Come on, get me out ”.

Despite the company’s official policy that it has a “zero tolerance policy on threats of violence and the use of our platform for criminal purposes,” it sounds like Gab has no particular interest in enforcing these rules. The company may not even agree that there was a riot in the first place. (New email hed: “New January 6th video destroys ‘insurrection’ hoax.”) Gab is not necessarily required to rigorously monitor the platform, Section 230 stipulates that platforms must ensure “vigorous enforcement” of federal criminal law in order to punish stalking and harassment, among other things.

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Torba takes the opportunity to outline Gab’s doctrine of free speech in an introduction and cites the avant-gardes of history that have been persecuted for their ideas (not for nothing is he a convincing writer who is sure to move some conservative hearts). Since Gab, according to Torba, is limited and impartially moderate, it accepts its position as a refuge for “people or ideas that broad sections of a certain population see as loathsome or evil”. The perception of evil is dangerously subjective, true. Evil is also a different issue from conditioning followers to believe disinformation that endangers their own health and that of others. Gab doesn’t have to stop like no one has to intervene in a drunken teacher’s lesson on finger fillet. (In this context, Gab is currently shaping up as an anti-mask LinkedIn with a job board and guidelines for obtaining vaccination exemptions.)

While Facebook, Snap, Google, and Reddit have all vaguely said they will work with the committee, Gab says it will refuse to release private user communications that it has already shared with law enforcement, arguing that Congress will unite Warrant or subpoena would need under the Recorded Communications Act. (If Congress wants them, Gab says, it will have to ask the Justice Department, which may or may not have already received the said records.)

Either way, you have to leave it to Torba for the headlines. A selection from the inbox:

“This email could result in Big Tech banning you”

“The real story of January 6th”

“The total end of a free society”

“The uncensored truth about the vaccination mandates”

And my favorite so far:

“How to survive in a post-truth world of chaos”

Who should say.