Yesterday’s post on the Wall Street Journal’s record-breaking month of disinfo was pretty heavy and took a while, so today we’re relaxing, as we are told that is a holiday tradition on the twentieth of April. We’re not sure what the reason is for the season, but it is the birthday of the guy who killed Hitler, so we’ll just assume that’s what’s up.
Speaking of Hitler, if you regularly find yourself saying “speaking of Hitler” in conversation, odds are you may be hanging out on one of the supposed free-speech alternatives to conventional social media, where it’s apparently too hard to harass people. Trump’s TruthSocial is having… quite a rough time, to say the least, and Parler and Gettr haven’t done much better.
Gab, as we’ve discussed before, is chock full o'nuts. As a quick and casual scroll down, its “explore” tab of popular posts shows its algorithm amplifies all manner of (trigger warning) misogyny, white supremacy, Russian propaganda, transphobia, anti-vaxxers, and homophobic anti-semetic conspiracy theorists.
These "top posts" net hundreds of likes apiece, instead of the tens of thousands to millions you may see on mainstream platforms. But that small pond means someone like our favorite conspiracy theorist Tony Heller can really stand out. Recently, he’s been posting Russian state propaganda about Ukraine, in addition to his standard anti-renewables content and climate conspiracies.
Oh, and, for some reason, he’s regressed to posting birther conspiracy theories, because apparently it’s important for Gabbers to know “African newspapers” and “Obama’s literary agents” said the first Black President of the United States was “born in Kenya.”
He’s also complained about people posting “anti-Semitic messages on [his] timeline,” asking if he should “place a Jewish star" in his Gab icon to get them to stop.
In response, commenters agreed that “this site is pretty bad for this,” that “there are so many trolls on here that you’ll be blocking morons constantly,” and that enduring such abuse is an “unfortunate artifact of free speech.”
Oh, and one challenged him to “define anti-semitism,” with another posting a link to a video suggesting that “the Star of David is not what you think it is.”
Wow, what a great platform Gab is! Such a shame so few people are using it, and so many are posting hateful conspiracy theories — too many, even for users who post hateful conspiracy theories!
