Gab (social network)
 |
|
|
Type of site
|
Social networking service |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Headquarters | San Mateo, California, United States |
| Owner | Gab AI, Inc. |
| Industry | Internet |
| Slogan(s) | Free Speech for Everyone |
| Website | gab |
| Registration | Required |
| Users | 150,000 |
| Launched | August 15, 2016 (beta) |
| Current status | Active (in beta) |
| Written in | PHP |
Gab is a San Mateo, California-basedsocial networking service that allows its users, called Gabbers, to read and write short messages of up to 300 characters called gabs. The site also offers limited multimedia functionality. Gab describes its mission as "to put people and free speech first" by limiting censorship to filtering options made available to Gabbers. Currently, Gab is only accessible to registered users, who must obtain an invitation to join.
Gab was created in August 2016 as an alternative to social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Founder and CEO Andrew Torba cited dissatisfaction with "the entirely left-leaning Big Social monopoly" as part of the inspiration for Gab, which he created "after reading reports that Facebook employees suppress conservative articles". Torba said in November that the site's user base had expanded significantly following censorship controversies involving major social media companies, including the permanent suspensions from Twitter of several prominent conservative and "alt-right" accounts.
As of December 2016, the service was still in beta and invitation-only, and submitting an email address placed the user on a waiting list.
Gab's color theme is a minimalist combination of black text on white panels with pink hashtags and usernames. The interface "behaves like a Twitter-Reddit hybrid", displaying messages in a Twitter-like vertically-scrolling timeline format with a Reddit-like option to upvote or downvote each post. The site also aggregates popular posts and trending topic hashtags.
When writing a gab, Gabbers can post up to 300 characters of plain text. Additional functionality is similar to Twitter, using # to create hashtags and @ to reference other users by username. Gabs can embed some multimedia, currently limited to emoji and Giphy animated GIFs. In addition, hyperlinks can be embedded, with some content such as YouTube videos displaying a thumbnail preview.
...
Wikipedia