I'm back already. Boy... it did not take long to find the juicy bits. They're all over, geez.
So upon entering, as a first time user, I got a few suggestions for groups to join. There was a group for British politics, so obviously I went into that one.
*Click*. Alright, so far so good. Then I entered. Ho-ly shit.....
Retro, they dislike The Donald just as much as you do. But uhm..... for different reasons...
These screenshots are the more tame bits. There's also a bunch of swastika stuff, which I won't post here for obvious reasons, of course. I had to scroll back and forth to see if I was really on the British section and didn't accidentally land on some page that's about Israel or something. But this page really is the Brit-section.
After some scrolling I did find something more Britain related. They mention Starmer. So I was like: Ah, finally, we're getting to the more relevant parts. But nope... same thing...
This all makes me scratch my head a bit. Like, everywhere I look, there isn't really much of a discussion going on. Like, I strongly believe in freedom of speech 'n all, but with that I do feel that whatever you have to say, make sure to elaborate on it with arguments that are content-related. Ya know, back things up with evidence and whatnot, make your words count. This however is all just "DA JOOS, IT'S DA JOOOOOS!", with stars of David almost randomly plastered over every picture. I did a tally, in fact.
49. Fourty-nine times "jews", on just the front page alone. The thing is, I've seen this sort of stuff before. It's not that I'm shocked by it. I've been around, you know. But I can honestly say that this is even worse than /pol/, the political section of 4chan. Much worse. There you will find anti Israel sentiments too, and yes, they don't mince their words. But at least they do also make an effort of explaining *why* they feel that way. And they throw in a bit of humor and memes. It may not be your kind of memes, but it's memes nonetheless, adding at least a sense of something human.
The stuff I find on gab.com however, at least as far as this page goes, is devoid of even that. There's nothing graceful about it, it's just full head-on collision, of schizos just shouting and yelling the same thing over and over again, without really getting deeper into anything. It feels soulless, and sad. Like mental patients in padded rooms in the looney bin, banging their heads on the walls.
I disagree with the whole banning access measure, as I inherently do not believe in censorship, but transparency, for openness in discourse, that would hopefully lead to something fruitful.
But bloody hell... you Britishes aren't missing out on much with not being able to go to gab.com. What an absolute toilet. It makes X look like a forum of Mensa level scholars.
So much racism (antisemitism is racism) I have no doubt that more serious, illegal stuff is on there too, please don't reveal it here. While I still don't agree with the OSA censorship, this is one forum that I'm not gonna miss, I tell you.
