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Comment by errantmind | Hacker News Reader

Can you provide some evidence they catered to hate groups? It was my understanding they attracted hate groups due to their policy of 'free speech', but did not specifically cater to them

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https://gab.com/ANS

https://gab.com/CNSM

For example

95 and 52 followers. Is that representative of the platform?

Well, I don't really care how many followers these accounts have - How many look at their posts daily withouth following the account, as not to "expose" themselves.

The American National Socialist shows a huge group of Nazis plus a Swastika in their banner picture, does it really matter then how many followers they have?

Not that it's representative, but it is certainly a "feature" of gab.

The request was for evidence about whether Gab caters to hate groups. I chose examples for their glaringly obvious nature as opposed to their popularity.

If you have a policy that allows any kind of speech, including hate speech, then you de-facto cater to hate groups.

However, Gab goes further than that and quite explicitly caters to far right hate groups, as detailed in this comment over on ARS:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/03/gab-t...

Sorry, what does this even mean? What does it mean to "cater to hate groups" beyond promising them safe harbor? Do you think they have a "Hate" button instead of a Like button? A search engine for minorities to dox? Lynch mob organizing features? I really don't know how much more catered you can get beyond saying "we're the site you want to use, but without the pesky rules." Trying to dissect the semantics here is pedantry beyond my comprehension.

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