[Update:] Following the publication of the article, CEO of GAB, Andrew Torba, made a post further clarifying the ban on lewd loli content, writing…

“Lewd loli is not allowed (and never has been btw) because it is a legal grey area in the United States at the federal level and illegal at the state level in many states. Anime, manga, and hentai that is properly tagged NSFW are of course allowed. I don’t know why this is difficult for some to understand. We aren’t waging war on anime fans or something. No lewd loli. “This platform policy (which is grounded in legal implications from US law) is separate from my personal opinion of lewd loli, which is that it is demonic degenerate garbage. “

[Original article:] Right-leaning censors never really went away, they just hid in the shadows like a stalker in a trench coat waiting for the right moment and the all-clear to strike. During the 1980s and 1990s they hit their zenith, but then quickly faded away. We recently saw them re-emerge in the form of the National Center of Sexual Exploitation, which is a Right-wing Christian group that advocates censorship of sexual content both online and offline. NCOSE (for short) launched a steady campaign against Valve back in 2017 that was fairly effective in getting some policies regarding sexual content changed for Steam, just until Valve pulled a 180 and opened the floodgates in mid-2018, much to NCOSE’s chagrin.

GAB is now stepping into the same situation when it comes to lolicon content, banning users and imagery from the social media platform that was supposed to be a free-speech alternative to the censorious nature of Twitter.

GAB’s CEO, Andrew Torba, posted a message on the social media site explaining that they were banning lolicon content from the social media service after various individuals complained about it.

Torba wrote on GAB…

“Real simple: we don’t welcome that garbage here. Take it to Mastodon if you want to share cartoons depicting the abuse, nudity, and sexual fetishization of children, which is illegal in many countries. Debate the legal grey area in the US all you want, but to us 18 USC 1466A is pretty clear and I think 99% of people would agree with us. Loli is cancer and demonic. “

Various users came to Torba’s defense and supported the decision to remove lolicon from GAB, some stating that it was drawn depictions of child abuse, while some didn’t even know what it was, but they were glad it was gone.

Some of the users made it known that those collecting, sharing, or showcasing lolicon material anywhere deserve to be treated as criminals or to be killed.

The responses were a little bit different on Twitter, however.

Torba made a similar post through the GAB Twitter account, but was met with some resistance after blocking an account that shared loli imagery. GAB’s response was that there is the right of freedom of association, and that GAB does not have to associate with those who post, share, distribute, draw, or collect loli material.

That’s called freedom of association. We don’t want to be associated with people who post and support cartoons depicting children being sexually abused and tortured. pic.twitter.com/HYFwWjlQjn — Gab.com🍂 (@getongab) October 14, 2018

Some of the users were quick to fire back that GAB was behaving no differently than Twitter, Google, or Facebook, mocking GAB’s limitations on the freedom of speech.

This is a fancy way of saying “we don’t want to actually offer a free platform” — Ms Hottakes (@MHottakes) October 15, 2018

Gab: FREEDOM OF SPEECH

Also Gab: Don’t post stuff we don’t like, (buzzword). BLOCKED — Souls (@Souls_101) October 14, 2018

Yesterday alt-“rights”: Leftists! Don’t force a baker to bake a cake for a gay.

Today alt-“rights”: Government! Apply a law to force Twitter to serve a conservatives.

Tomorrow alt-“rights”: Leftists! How you dare to use this law to force Gab to serve a pedophiles. — O01eg (@o01eg) October 15, 2018

Loli is the canary in the coal mine of free speech, irrespective of anyone’s personal tastes. Its the very definition of “legal but highly divisive” content. I’m very, VERY sad to see Gab making puritanical “exceptions” to their free speech position. Its hypocritical. — ♦The Legendary Acid Man❌ (@AcidOverlord) October 16, 2018

Others pointed out that GAB seemed to be less for freedom of speech than Twitter, given that Twitter does not ban lolicon material, as evident with the fact that Shadman is still alive and well on Twitter and continues to cause many users lots of grief with his trolling-style depictions of lolicon, which resulted in a campaign to get him booted off of social media platforms by SJWs on the Left and the Right.

In this case, it’s rather obvious that GAB may not like Twitter or Facebook’s policies when it comes to censoring Conservatives, but there is still some old-school Puritanism running through the digital veins of GAB that sees it allying with the censors when it comes to very divisive content like lolis.

(Thanks for the news tip Iswear12)