Paypal closes accounts on far-right social network Gab

In the wake of a piece of shit murdering 11 individuals celebrating Shabbos today in Pittsburgh, PayPal has cut off all payments to accounts associated with Gab: a chatty haven for far-right extremists, bigots and other affiliated filth to spew hateful rhetoric, without fear of punishment. Paypal donations from Gab's user base was one of the social network's primary sources of income. Paypal's move comes a month after the payment gurus at Stripe closed up Gab's accounts.

In an emailed statement to Gizmodo, Paypal's PR team said that "PayPal has canceled the Gab.Ai account. The company is diligent in performing reviews and taking account actions. When a site is explicitly allowing the perpetuation of hate, violence or discriminatory intolerance, we take immediate and decisive action."

Not long after the Pittsburgh massacre, Gab plopped out a statement on Medium, defending their social network:

Gab.com's policy on terrorism and violence have always been very clear: we a have zero tolerance for it. Gab unequivocally disavows and condemns all acts of terrorism and violence. This has always been our policy. We are saddened and disgusted by the news of violence in Pittsburgh and are keeping the families and friends of all victims in our thoughts and prayers.

The post goes on to talk about how important free speech is to Gab and that "...if people can not express themselves through words, they will do so through violence. No one wants that. No one."

I'm pretty sure that this is slime-talk for "Lordy, don't kick us off our servers or otherwise shut us down."

Gab's proclamation of love for free speech doesn't seem to extend to anyone that has anything resembling criticism for their online community.

From Gizmodo:

...Gab's Twitter account has spent much of the day attacking critics, calling the New York Times' Mike Isaac a "smug inner city elitist," accusing BuzzFeed of being racist against white people, and calling Twitter "one giant cesspool of Jew-hating lunatics."

Image via Wikipedia Commons