After being banned from Twitter during the 2016 presidential campaign,many members of the"alt-right"movement of white nationalists joined Gab,which describes itself as"an ad-free social network for creators who believe in free speech,individual liberty,and the free flow of information online."On Tuesday,one of the site's most popular posts was an image that said:"I[HEART] BEING WHITE."
"The market is owned and controlled and operated by the oligarchy of Twitter and Facebook and Google,"says Gab's founder,Andrew Torba.
"The reality is hate speech is free speech,"Torba adds,citing US Supreme Court precedent. With predominantly left-leaning companies,many of them in San Francisco,setting the boundaries on what speech isn't acceptable on for-profit platforms,"that's a huge opportunity to sit here and defend the internet that I grew up on".
Right-wing activists banned from the crowdfunding site Patreon can fundraise on Hatreon,a platform created to counter the"inexcusable content policing of services like Patreon".
Hatreon – pronounced HATE-ree-on – currently features fundraisers supporting Richard Spencer,one of America's most prominent white nationalists (who has 34"patrons"pledging to donate $US362 to him a month),and Andrew Anglin,one of America's most prominent neo-Nazis (with 50 donors pledging $US869.17 a month).
Spencer called Hatreon's founder,Cody Wilson,of Austin,Texas,to praise the service,telling him he would use it"even if you were the most left-wing Jewish communist,"according to Wilson. (Spencer confirmed the accuracy of the remarks.)
Wilson,who is best known for his efforts to produce guns through 3D printing,described himself as an"internet anarchist"who wants to disrupt the establishment's status quo. He was intrigued by far-right users on social media,who sometimes post racist,sexist and anti-Semitic comments and images but also playful memes of their de facto mascot,"Pepe,"a cartoon frog."Frog Twitter and the so-called'alt-right'– there's a lot of life there,"Wilson says."I'm kind of happy to help it mutate."
Another crowdfunding startup,WeSearchr,has raised more than $150,000 for Anglin's legal defense in a lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Centre,the anti-extremism non-profit organisation,after Anglin organised a"troll storm"against a Jewish woman on his website,The Daily Stormer.
WeSearchr often sponsors fundraisers for medical bills and legal defence funds for far-right figures. It also offers"bounties"– money donated by users to meet a certain objective – seeking the identities of anti-fascists involved in violent encounters.
WeSeachr's owner,Chuck Johnson,a right-wing journalist and provocateur who has been banned from Twitter,said it was"good business to allow free speech"and that he believes not discriminating against users'political views might give him better protection from lawsuits.
One of WeSeachr's other founders,Pax Dickinson,recently split from the company to start his own crowdfunding site,Counter.Fund,with an"explicit dedication against Marxist political correctness and the globalist progressive Left,"according to its website.
Dickinson was the chief technology officer of Business Insider until he was forced to resign in 2013 after sexist and racist tweets of his were uncovered by US news siteGawker. Since then,Dickinson has channelled his entrepreneurial energies into creating financial infrastructure to sustain the far-right.
"Counter-cultural content creators are trapped into funnelling income streams through platforms owned by their ideological enemies,"Dickinson wrote in a manifesto explaining the need for his new company."A non-liberal on Patreon or Kickstarter is just one hack journalist's hit piece or progressive cultural campaign away from being censored from their platform and losing their income stream entirely."
Dickinson declined to be interviewed for this article.
The relationship between America's far-right and liberal tech world was mutually beneficial at first.
As the alt-right movement gained momentum over the past two years,supporters found that advertising-supported platforms like Facebook and Twitter were powerful tools for trolling and self-promotion. For a fee,crowdfunding sites such as GoFundMe offered the possibility for rising stars in the movement to convert their newfound social capital into actual financial capital.
But as the far-right's influence grew,many of those companies cracked down after liberals and leftists accused them of sponsoring hate speech.
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"I don't want to patronise anyone that patronises them,"said Daryle Lamont Jenkins,an anti-fascist activist who has pressured companies that do business with far-right figures."They make it clear that they want to undermine society,that they want to break up society as we know it,that they want to be a boot on everyone's neck. Why should we ignore that?"
Los Angeles Times