Padraig Martin (@PadraigMartin)

The Assault on Gab I remember when the tragic event of the Tree of Life Synogogue shooting occurred. Whereas I am no fan of Judaism or Jewish Supremacy, I also do not advocate the killing of any people. As a Christian, it is my obligation to tell the Jews they must accept Christ. If a Jew fails to do so, he will go to Hell. If he truly accept Him, his heart will be changed, and he can be saved from damnation. I am of the opinion that the vast majority of Jews will not accept Jesus and will therefore suffer eternally. But I have an obligation to at least tell them the truth and fight any anti-Christian agenda they may enjoin. That said, there is only one platform upon which I can make such a statement without censorship: Gab. The pretext to ban Gab from app stores was explicitly predicated on the Tree of Life shooting, but the real reason is far more insidious. After all, many have orchestrated and actually livestreamed far more horrific events then the Tree of Life shooting on platforms that still enjoy app store access. Banning Gab was all about stiffling free speech. Many of you complain about Torba, but he provides you a free platform to express your opinions. It seems like the dog who bites the hand that feeds you. But I digress. Torba is clearly not a "tech bro" in the same circle as Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg. The fact that Trump's Truth Social was allowed onto the main phone app stores is an indication that baning Gab was never about targeting "conservative" speech. It was about targeting free speech, specifically free speech as it pertains to uncomfortable truths and/or observations. Clearly, this was a threat to the regime. I have had many of you state that Gab is not that impactful. When I had a previous page on Facebook with approximately 250,000 followers and a Twitter account of more than 100,000, I never received half of the kind of engagement on written articles as Gab with a much smaller "audience." Such subjective observations can be dismissed, but there is one thing that cannot be dismissed: the US Government seemed to agree with me - Gab is smaller but more impactful. This last week, DOGE found that USAID spent almost $1,5 million monitoring Gab, among other sites. This likely does not include the myriad of agency employees who similarly monitor the site. If Gab was not a threat to the regime, they would simply ignore it and let it die on the vine. Clearly, that did not happen. The regime is scared of your free speech. Contrary to the Marxist opinion of the ADL, freedom of reach is the essence of freedom of speech. Gab provides that "reach." The regime does not care if you yell rhetoric at a wall. It fears speaking with one another and sharing ideas and unpopular opinions. The government's assault on Gab, therefore, was never about a web platform. It was about you.