Congressman Matt Gaetz has become the latest elected official in the US to embrace alternative tech this week by posting to free speech social network Gab.
Gaetz started posting to Gab yesterday and already has more than 17,000 followers with his posts getting thousands of likes and interactions. The Congressman also started a Gab account for his “Firebrand with Matt Gaetz” podcast.
Gab CEO Andrew Torba welcomed Gaetz by praising him for being “a staunch supporter of free speech for many years” and “one of the few voices in Congress fighting for the many issues that the American people actually care about.”
Gaetz often speaks out against Big Tech censorship. He has previously pressed Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook’s censorship of conservatives and condemned Twitter for permanently banning news outlet The National Pulse.
Gaetz has also been subject to tech censorship himself, with Twitter shadowbanning his account in 2018.
The Congressman joins Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, Congressman Paul Gosar, and more than 50 other elected officials and political candidates who have started posting their content to Gab.
“As more members of Congress join Gab and as dozens of candidates for office join them it’s becoming more clear by the day that Gab is the place to be for the 2022 election and beyond,” Torba said. “For the first time Americans will be able to access the free flow of information and news at scale on a social media platform this election cycle without permission or censorship from Silicon Valley Oligarchs.”
Torba added that “in the past 30 days alone Gab has had over 70 million visits and our traffic has surpassed that of most major news sites.”
Gaetz move to Gab reflects the surging interest in alt-tech this week which was triggered by Twitter permanently banning Greene and several popular figures, including Senator Rand Paul, podcaster Joe Rogan, and immunologist and virologist Dr. Robert Mallone, announcing that they would start posting on alternative platforms.
This growing interest in alt-tech has resulted in several other alternative platforms hitting record user and traffic numbers with free speech-focused social media platform GETTR reporting one million new sign-ups this week and free speech video sharing platform Rumble reporting record daily video consumption.
