Pittsburgh shooting: Gab drops offline after attack Published duration 29 October 2018

image copyright Gab image caption Gab was launched in August 2016 and used to use a frog logo

A Twitter-rival used by the man accused of a gun attack on a US synagogue has gone offline after several technology services withdrew support from it.

Gab describes itself as a defender of "free speech and expression" with nearly 800,000 users.

It has faced criticism in the past for providing an outlet for far-right figureheads and conspiracy theorists banned from other social networks.

The service has said it has "zero tolerance" for terrorism and violence.

It has, however, acknowledged that a verified account whose details matched those of the alleged Tree of Life Synagogue shooter had been active on its service.

The account, registered to Robert Bowers, had posted several anti-Semitic messages on the platform. And in a final update had written: "Screw your optics, I'm going in," shortly before the Pittsburgh attack.

Gab said it was "ready and willing to work with law enforcement" and noted that the suspect "also had accounts on other social networks".

It said "high volumes" of criminal activity were present on other social media platforms.

Even so, some of the technology companies who have severed their relationship with Gab said they were uncomfortable with its behaviour .

Among them is PayPal, which banned the company from using its money-transfer service on Saturday.

image copyright Getty Images image caption Eleven people were killed in Saturday's attack

"When a site is explicitly allowing the perpetuation of hate, violence or discriminatory intolerance, we take immediate and decisive action," PayPal said in a statement.

Internet domain registrar GoDaddy also explained why it had given Gab just 24 hours to find another provider.

"In response to complaints received over the weekend, GoDaddy investigated and discovered numerous instances of content on the site that both promotes and encourages violence against people," a spokesman told BBC News.

Gab has reported that a further three technology companies , which have not publicly commented, had also banned or suspended it:

Samsung-owned Joyent, which provides web-hosting services

Stripe, an online payments processor

Medium, the blogging platform, which Gab had used to publish a statement about the synagogue attack

image copyright Gab image caption Gab's website currently shows this message

"Show the world that your TOS [terms of service] means nothing and your rules are enforced subjectively at will," it posted.

This is not the first time Gab has clashed with others.

Apple and Google have both banned its app from their stores and Microsoft stopped hosting the platform on its Azure cloud computing platform in September.

But Gab has said that it still has "plenty of options, resources and support" after the latest setback and is "working around to clock" to get back online.

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