Rita Katz is director of the SITE Intelligence Group. A leading figure in counterterror, she has spent over two decades tracking extremist movements.

As news of Saturday’s tragic shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh broke, the nation soon learned of the vile hate that motivated the alleged attacker, a 46-year-old white man named Robert Bowers. He regularly posted anti-Semitic content on Gab, an “alternative” social media platform, with assertions like “jews are the children of satan” and other vile ideas. Posts and reposts on Bowers account, which was removed following his attack, echoed all the major points of the white nationalist community: railing against “ZOGs” (“Zionist Operated Governments”), Jews’ “war against” white people and “kike infestation.”

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Just hours before his attack on October 27, he posted of Hebrews Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), a refugee-aiding organization connected to Tree of Life Synagogue:




HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people.

I can't sit by and watch my people get slaughtered.

Screw your optics, I'm going in.

Alarming as Bowers’ horrifying posts themselves are, they are anything but an anomaly: This sort of anti-Semitic rhetoric is common on Gab, highlighting concerns about its growing facilitation of white nationalism and other far-right movements.

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Gab was created in 2016 amid outrage over popular conservative figures being banned from platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Just two years later, Gab houses about 465,000 users. In its community guidelines, Gab gives what appears to be an industry-standard outline on content pertaining to threats and terrorism:



Users are prohibited from calling for the acts of violence against others, promoting or engaging in self-harm, and/or acts of cruelty, threatening language or behaviour that clearly, directly and incontrovertibly infringes on the safety of another user or individual(s). We may also report the user(s) to local and/or federal law enforcement, as per the advice of our legal counsel.

Gab follows the U.S. Department of State’s definitions of terrorism and list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, along with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s proscribed list of terrorist groups, organizations and/or individuals.

An August 11 Gab post by founder and CEO Andrew Torba, a conservative Silicon Valley entrepreneur, speaks to his objective:

Free speech means you can offend, criticize, and make memes about any race, religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation.

Sick and tired of the double standards for “acceptable speech” and “protected classes” on both the left and the right.

Gab’s absolutist approach to speech—including what is often outright hate speech—has made the platform a safe haven for white supremacists and other far-right communities from all over the world. But don’t just take it from me. Earlier in 2018, users on Stormfront, a major white supremacist forum, discussed what they perceived as the pros and cons of Gab. Many seemed to find it very beneficial to their community.

“I am a member there, like to spout my mouth off there, all my anti jew stuff,” one Stormfront user wrote.

“The thing to ask is if the site is a net positive for us,” stated another Stormfront user. “I think it's a net positive because it connects Jew-wise people.”

Indeed, there is no hyperbole in calling Gab a cesspool of hateful and threatening rhetoric by “Jew-wise people”—white supremacist code for anti-Semites. Usernames often contain Nazi insignia like swastikas and the Waffen-SS logo, while profiles promote “anti-jew video podcasts” and websites “advocating for the violent overthrow of the current ZOG.” Users post and repost messages stating “kill them all” of the Jews and rap songs mockingly referencing gas chambers, just to name a few. As you scroll through profiles, passing the bounty of messages stating that Jews are “human sewage” that “must report to the oven” and “all jews must die,” you feel as if you’ve stumbled into Hitler’s Nazi Germany.

An image disseminated on Gab. | SITE Intelligence Group

If you thought the attack at Tree of Life Synagogue would prompt users to tone it down, you’d be wrong. Less than a day after news of the attack broke, many were celebrating on the platform. One user, Brett Stevens, posted a poll with the “#treeoflifeshooting” hashtag, asking, “What should the future of Jewish people in the West be?” The answers were disturbing, with 35 percent voting for “genocide”:

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Commenting on the poll, one user exclaimed, “Mass graves. Period. What you tolerate is what will continue.”

User Brett Stevens also posted another poll asking, “Do you support the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter, Robert Bowers?” Almost 25 percent said they did. Commenting on the poll, one user said, “As long as Jews support the indiscriminate genocide of my race, fuck yeah I do.” Another stated, “Robert Bowers literally did nothing wrong.”

Artwork disseminated on the platform shared these sentiments about Bowers, showing him beside the message “all Jews must die,” and quoting his final post on Gab.

Image disseminated across Gab, praising shooter Robert Bowers. | SITE Intelligence Group

Also posted in the aftermath of the attack was a message by Alex Linder, owner of Vanguard News Network (VNN), a neo-Nazi forum that has housed such individuals as 2014 Jewish Community Center attacker Frazier Glenn Miller. In his Gab post, Lindler asserted that Jews aim to kill whites “if we let them,” using the hashtag “#DeathToTheJews.” One user commented on his post, “If every jew currently alive was exterminated it still wouldn't even come close to paying for the evil they have inflicted on us.”

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Troubling in its own way is that Gab likewise hosts your suit-and-tie white nationalists such as Richard Spencer and Jared Taylor, who often use soft language for racial separation and “peaceful” ethnic cleansing—effectively soft-pedaling the same white nationalist ideas more violently expressed by others. Christopher Cantwell, who gained nationwide infamy for his boisterous presence at the “Unite the Right” rally in in Charlottesville, Va., in August 2017, has an account with 11,059 followers.

Also housed on Gab are several far-right organizations, including Identity Evropa, an American White Nationalist group; and Patriot Front (a splinter of the Vanguard America white nationalist organization), which produces scores of propaganda (flier drops, posters, etc.) and promotes events.

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As someone who studies online extremism for a living, it’s hard to overstate how dangerous this flow of vile content is. Anyone with an anti-Semitic outlook has their own, safe bubble wherein their hate can fester. Even Gab users who don’t ascribe to anti-Semitic views are naturally more likely to embrace those ideas when surrounded by such material.

As attention to Gab spiked following Bowers’ attack, Torba posted a message a day after the shooting warning that the platform would go down on Monday (the following day) as the site’s hosting provider would be dropping the platform. However, he added that “a new hosting provider [had been] secured,” assuring that the site “stays online.”

Indeed, as of Monday, October 29, the platform appears to be down, with a message from Torba railing that “Gab isn’t going anywhere.”

“No-platform us all you want. Ban us all you want. Smear us all you want,” he states. “You can’t stop an idea.” The message promised, though, “Gab will continue to fight for the fundamental human right to speak freely,” adding: “We are working around the clock to get Gab.com back online. Thank you and remember to speak freely.”

However, just like ISIS and al-Qaeda networks online, shutting these communities down is not hitting a delete button. Gab has already survived other attempts at its removal, and may very well resurface again. White supremacist and other far right movements are growing, at least online. Gab’s user base doubled from around 280,000 in September 2017 to 465,000 (a number touted by Torba) this past May.

The rise of these far-right communities on Gab looks remarkably similar to the rise of ISIS on social media: fringe extremist movements, once confined to shadowy discussion forums, finding new empowerment and outreach potential via their respective platforms. To that point, as I scrolled through the posts and artwork praising Bowers on Gab, it was like watching ISIS-linked accounts on various platforms celebrate the Orlando or San Bernardino attacks.

And the result of these festering white nationalist communities is evidently the same. Just as we saw with 2015 Garland Texas Attacker Elton Simpson—whose Twitter activity showed constant engagement with recruiters before his eventual taking-up of a call to attack a Prophet-drawing contest—Robert Bowers was immersed in his own toxic bubble.

Left: Elton Simpson tweeting of his responsibility prior to his 2015 attack in Garland, Texas on behalf of ISIS; Right: Robert Bowers commenting on his attack prior to carrying it out. | SITE Intelligence Group

To truly do something about the tragic shooting in Pittsburgh, it will require that we acknowledge Bowers’ attack as more than just an isolated hate crime, and not take the easy route by calling him a “small drop in the bucket.”

Attackers like Bowers ascribe to a dangerous array of far-right movements, all with specific (and often overlapping) agendas, conspiracy theories, terminologies, and historical interpretations. None of these movements limit their hate to just Jews. From calling for the death of Pope Francis to supporting LGBTQ concentration camps to encouraging attacks on Muslim worship centers, these far-right movements are threats to entire societies—not just a few minority groups within them.

Are we going to accept these horrid exchanges of hate and incitements as a new normal of the internet age? Does a fringe community’s evasive outcry about free speech take more priority than another community’s right to peacefully worship? Perhaps the most pressing question is in America’s blatant double standard of what is prioritized as terrorism: When an ISIS supporter posts a message about attacking America, he will get arrested, but when neo Nazi or far-right extremist like Bowers—and thousands like him—post messages urging for the death of Jews, they receive no attention. Why?

May the coming days see the beginning of these difficult, but much-needed national conversations.