Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting Puts Spotlight on Fringe Platforms and Their Partners

As mainstream social-media companies such as Facebook and Twitter try to get rid of hate speech, those conversations are finding homes in other corners of the web

Keach Hagey,

Georgia Wells and

Dan Frosch

Oct. 29, 2018 8:59 p.m. ET

Hours after Robert Bowers allegedly opened fire at a Pittsburgh synagogue on Saturday, the right-wing social-media platform where he had posted anti-Semitic messages lost the partners that kept it running.

In quick succession, Gab.com was dropped by its web-hosting firm, Joyent Inc., and GoDaddy Inc., the domain registrar that allows it to have an address on the web. It also was cut off by payment processors PayPal Holdings Inc. and Stripe. By Monday, Gab.com was seemingly out of commission.

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