I submitted my email today at Gab and got this message:
Done! You’re #1320420 in the waiting list.
Only three rules:
Illegal Pornography
We have a zero tolerance policy against illegal pornography. Such material will be instantly removed and the owning account will be dealt with appropriately per the advice of our legal counsel. We reserve the right to ban accounts that share such material. We may also report the user to local law enforcement per the advice our legal counsel.
Threats and Terrorism
We have a zero tolerance policy for violence and terrorism. Users are not allowed to make threats of, or promote, violence of any kind or promote terrorist organizations or agendas. Such users will be instantly removed and the owning account will be dealt with appropriately per the advice of our legal counsel. We may also report the user to local and/or federal law enforcement per the advice of our legal counsel.
What defines a ‘terrorist organization or agenda’? Any group that is labelled as a terrorist organization by the United Nations and/or United States of America classifies as a terrorist organization on Gab.
Private Information
Users are not allowed to post other’s confidential information, including but not limited to, credit card numbers, street numbers, SSNs, without their expressed authorization.
If Gab is listening, I can get the rules down to one:
Court Ordered Removal
When Gab receives a court order from a court of competent jurisdiction ordering the removal of identified, posted content, at (service address), the posted, identified content will be removed.
Simple, fair, gets Gab and its staff out of the censorship business and provides a transparent remedy.
At no cost to Gab!
What’s there not to like?
Gab should review my posts: Monetizing Hate Speech and False News and Preserving Ad Revenue With Filtering (Hate As Renewal Resource), while it is in closed beta.
Twitter and Facebook can keep spending uncompensated time and effort trying to be universal and fair censors. Gab has the opportunity to reach up and grab those $100 bills flying overhead for filtered news services.
What is the New York Times if not an opinionated and poorly run filter on all the possible information it could report?
Apply that same lesson to social media!
PS: Seriously, before going public, I would go to the one court-based rule on content. There’s no profit and no wins in censoring any content on your own. Someone will always want more or less. Courts get paid to make those decisions.
Check with your lawyers but if you don’t look at any content, you can’t be charged with constructive notice of it. Unless and until someone points it out, then you have to follow DCMA, court orders, etc.