6 ms·

Gab is now the 647th most popular website in the US, explosive 90 day growth

57 points by KLexpat 6y ago

perryizgr8 6y ago
Website does not load for me. Stuck on: Checking your browser before accessing Gab.com This process is automatic. Your browser will redirect to your requested content shortly. Gab is growing rapidly in a historic exodus from Big Tech, and fending off sophisticated attacks that seek to silence and censor your ability to Speak Freely. While we work to scale up there will be periods of growing pains, slowness, and even downtime. We would appreciate your patience and support during this.
- viraptor 6y ago
  > Checking your browser before accessing Gab.com That's a CloudFlare banner. Gab needs to pay attention to what's happening now or they will be dropped as well.
  - totony 6y ago
    Yeah, Cloudflare has already shown that it does cancel customers (https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/)
  - mensetmanusman 6y ago
    I wonder if other large tech companies have realized that since the ALCU, other EU government leaders, and major political institutes have started questioning the power of Apple, Google, and Amazon to do this, they might not want to be in the crosshair of what happens next...
yurishimo 6y ago
I'm not gonna take any sides on Gab/Parler/et al but I do find the events of the past few days, and will find the next few weeks, absolutely fascinating from a technology and social perspective. I'm relatively young, even by internet standards (26), but I can't think of any other mass exodus from an online site/platform like this. Was the move from Digg to Reddit this drastic? I don't remember Myspace going out of style this fast once FB opened up. Seeing my boomer relatives flock to these obscure platforms has been really interesting. I'm also curious if there will be any sort of post mortem from any of these companies once the traffic stabilizes. My guess is probably not since from what I've been able to gather, all of these fringe sites tend to be run by a handful of people and not full teams of developers. Writing a post mortem may give their online opposition hints into whatever new infrastructure they cobble together and contribute to further shenanigans. It's the same reason we didn't seem a post mortem after Iowa 2020 or the DNC hacks in 2016 I would guess. Does anyone expect a real drop in market share for the iPhone over the next 12-18 months if Parlor can't get back on the App store? Again, just fascinating stuff to watch from an outside perspective.
- runawaybottle 6y ago
  A North American exodus of a political subset off these tech platforms is irrelevant in 2020 because all of the companies reached global scale. Maybe back in 2005 this would have mattered, but it is totally not enough today.
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    IIRC most ad revenue from social media is the US by far. It would be a very big wallop.
    - evgen 6y ago
      Do you really think Gab or Parler is going to have any ad revenue? When marketing teams are (rightly) concerned about appearing on Hannity or Rachel Maddows you think they are going to dedicate any spend to these sites? Maybe gold scams and prepper packs, but there will be no loss in ad revenue by the major players to any of these minor right-wing sites.
      - thursday0987 6y ago
        yes. Usually what happens is the advertisers purchase a set amount of ads from a broker, which operates at scale. That broker than purchases ad space from various advertising networks. many of these brokers also purchase from gab and parler.
      - bobthepanda 6y ago
        Even if Gab or Parler don't take revenue, the users who leave Facebook and Twitter will still no longer be advertised to on those platforms, so that's still a revenue drop for the incumbents.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Symbiote 6y ago
  > Seeing my boomer relatives You can write "baby boomer" or "people over 55" or similar to avoid using a pejorative term.
tibbydudeza 6y ago
Oh dear ... good luck to their moderation team. Be unlawful or be made in furtherance of any unlawful purpose. User Contributions must not aid, abet, assist, counsel, procure or solicit the commission of, nor constitute an attempt or part of a conspiracy to commit, any unlawful act. Unlawfully threaten. Incite imminent lawless action.
throwawaygulf 6y ago
I wonder how far the bifurcation of the Internet will go. Gab, Parler, Voat, etc. are all just the beginning in my mind.
- KLexpat 6y ago
  Netflix is fragmenting into Disneyplus, HBO , etc. Facebook and Twitter are fragmenting into a bunch of different 'alt' services These companies will get completely crushed if the stock market decides that even a company with the scale of facebook can't establish a permanent moat from new entrants. A bit of a MySpace moment happening again
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Netflix is fragmenting into Disneyplus, HBO , etc. HBO is older than Netflix, as are most of the media companies opposing Netflix. Netflix was first in streaming, but streaming is just a delivery mechanism, the real product is the content and (but for a one-off) they haven't radically transformed that. Netflix isn't “fragmenting", movies and serialized shows are moving from TV/Cable (and, recently, theaters) to streaming for delivery.
- foolmeonce 6y ago
  I don't get how a bifurcation is supposed to work, Ukrainian grand mothers are supposed to choose between America First and (American only) Black Lives Matter?
  - throwawaygulf 6y ago
    Pretty much. America First Streaming is using RedWhiteBlue Hosting, FreedomDNS, etc. and BLM Streaming is using Antifa Hosting, DefundPoliceDNS, etc. And for the rest of us who are caught in the middle, those above options are all that we have. Imagine if restaurants only had Kosher and Halal food, but no longer make "regular" food because "regular" people will reluctantly eat Kosher or Halal, but Kosher and Halal customers will not entertain "regular" food. So the entire stack all the way down becomes bifurcated due to political beliefs. https://nassimtaleb.org/2016/08/intolerant-wins-dictatorship-small-minority/ https://nassimtaleb.org/2016/08/intolerant-wins-dictatorship...
KLexpat 6y ago
https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/gab.com#section_traffic https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/gab.com#section_traffic a day later it's at #537 in the US

57 points by KLexpat 6y ago

Website does not load for me. Stuck on: Checking your browser before accessing Gab.com This process is automatic. Your browser will redirect to your requested content shortly. Gab is growing rapidly in a historic exodus from Big Tech, and fending off sophisticated attacks that seek to silence and censor your ability to Speak Freely. While we work to scale up there will be periods of growing pains, slowness, and even downtime. We would appreciate your patience and support during this.

viraptor 6y ago
> Checking your browser before accessing Gab.com That's a CloudFlare banner. Gab needs to pay attention to what's happening now or they will be dropped as well.
- totony 6y ago
  Yeah, Cloudflare has already shown that it does cancel customers (https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/)
- mensetmanusman 6y ago
  I wonder if other large tech companies have realized that since the ALCU, other EU government leaders, and major political institutes have started questioning the power of Apple, Google, and Amazon to do this, they might not want to be in the crosshair of what happens next...

yurishimo 6y ago

I'm not gonna take any sides on Gab/Parler/et al but I do find the events of the past few days, and will find the next few weeks, absolutely fascinating from a technology and social perspective. I'm relatively young, even by internet standards (26), but I can't think of any other mass exodus from an online site/platform like this. Was the move from Digg to Reddit this drastic? I don't remember Myspace going out of style this fast once FB opened up. Seeing my boomer relatives flock to these obscure platforms has been really interesting. I'm also curious if there will be any sort of post mortem from any of these companies once the traffic stabilizes. My guess is probably not since from what I've been able to gather, all of these fringe sites tend to be run by a handful of people and not full teams of developers. Writing a post mortem may give their online opposition hints into whatever new infrastructure they cobble together and contribute to further shenanigans. It's the same reason we didn't seem a post mortem after Iowa 2020 or the DNC hacks in 2016 I would guess. Does anyone expect a real drop in market share for the iPhone over the next 12-18 months if Parlor can't get back on the App store? Again, just fascinating stuff to watch from an outside perspective.

runawaybottle 6y ago
A North American exodus of a political subset off these tech platforms is irrelevant in 2020 because all of the companies reached global scale. Maybe back in 2005 this would have mattered, but it is totally not enough today.
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  IIRC most ad revenue from social media is the US by far. It would be a very big wallop.
  - evgen 6y ago
    Do you really think Gab or Parler is going to have any ad revenue? When marketing teams are (rightly) concerned about appearing on Hannity or Rachel Maddows you think they are going to dedicate any spend to these sites? Maybe gold scams and prepper packs, but there will be no loss in ad revenue by the major players to any of these minor right-wing sites.
    - thursday0987 6y ago
      yes. Usually what happens is the advertisers purchase a set amount of ads from a broker, which operates at scale. That broker than purchases ad space from various advertising networks. many of these brokers also purchase from gab and parler.
    - bobthepanda 6y ago
      Even if Gab or Parler don't take revenue, the users who leave Facebook and Twitter will still no longer be advertised to on those platforms, so that's still a revenue drop for the incumbents.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Symbiote 6y ago
> Seeing my boomer relatives You can write "baby boomer" or "people over 55" or similar to avoid using a pejorative term.

tibbydudeza 6y ago

Oh dear ... good luck to their moderation team. Be unlawful or be made in furtherance of any unlawful purpose. User Contributions must not aid, abet, assist, counsel, procure or solicit the commission of, nor constitute an attempt or part of a conspiracy to commit, any unlawful act. Unlawfully threaten. Incite imminent lawless action.

throwawaygulf 6y ago

I wonder how far the bifurcation of the Internet will go. Gab, Parler, Voat, etc. are all just the beginning in my mind.

KLexpat 6y ago
Netflix is fragmenting into Disneyplus, HBO , etc. Facebook and Twitter are fragmenting into a bunch of different 'alt' services These companies will get completely crushed if the stock market decides that even a company with the scale of facebook can't establish a permanent moat from new entrants. A bit of a MySpace moment happening again
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Netflix is fragmenting into Disneyplus, HBO , etc. HBO is older than Netflix, as are most of the media companies opposing Netflix. Netflix was first in streaming, but streaming is just a delivery mechanism, the real product is the content and (but for a one-off) they haven't radically transformed that. Netflix isn't “fragmenting", movies and serialized shows are moving from TV/Cable (and, recently, theaters) to streaming for delivery.
foolmeonce 6y ago
I don't get how a bifurcation is supposed to work, Ukrainian grand mothers are supposed to choose between America First and (American only) Black Lives Matter?
- throwawaygulf 6y ago
  Pretty much. America First Streaming is using RedWhiteBlue Hosting, FreedomDNS, etc. and BLM Streaming is using Antifa Hosting, DefundPoliceDNS, etc. And for the rest of us who are caught in the middle, those above options are all that we have. Imagine if restaurants only had Kosher and Halal food, but no longer make "regular" food because "regular" people will reluctantly eat Kosher or Halal, but Kosher and Halal customers will not entertain "regular" food. So the entire stack all the way down becomes bifurcated due to political beliefs. https://nassimtaleb.org/2016/08/intolerant-wins-dictatorship-small-minority/ https://nassimtaleb.org/2016/08/intolerant-wins-dictatorship...

KLexpat 6y ago

https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/gab.com#section_traffic https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/gab.com#section_traffic a day later it's at #537 in the US