The Alt Right and their new Non-PC Internet
Back in August of 2016, a few of silicon valley’s most controversial members banded together to create a social network website and application to combat the “entirely left-leaning Big Social monopoly” as described by one of the original members. After these members were removed from their various other projects for supporting trump or violations of harassment policies, they were fed up and wanted a place that they could put out their true feelings, so they created gab.ai. Gab started as a network of just 4 people, and has now grown to a network of hundreds of thousands of users. Gab is branded with many Alt-Right symbols including Pepe, a meme that was hijacked by many Alt-Right 4chan users to symbolize the hatred of the Alt-Right. Its user base consists of people who previously congregated on other social media sites like Facebook in which they could find networks of people with similar beliefs, however, eventually, larger networks of people who disagree and believe that what they stand for is wrong have driven them from these sites. In turn, they have migrated to a site that allows them to have more positive connections than negative. Its relaxed and almost non-existent ruleset allows the application to be a haven for White Supremacists, Nazis, and other hate groups.
After the recent events in Charlottesville, many prominent hateful websites have been removed from the internet by their hosting companies. Websites like the Daily Stormer allowed content making fun of the victims of the Charlottesville incident, and were almost immediately removed from both GoDaddy hosting services and Google hosting services, along with many other websites involved in planning the rally. Event organizers and participators had Facebook and twitter accounts deactivated and AirBnB listings removed as they would be used in a possibly inappropriate manner. Finally, Gab was removed from the Google Store completely. With the removal of all of these different outlets from the internet, the founders of Gab and a few other prominent silicon valley figures who joined together to create the “Free Speech Tech Alliance” have started the “Alt-Tech” movement which will attempt to create a new internet, that embodies complete and total free speech.
https://slate.com/technology/2017/08/the-alt-right-wants-to-build-its-own-internet.html