Andrew Torba Profile picture
Nov 27 9 tweets 4 min read Read on X
🧵OPERATION CHOKEPOINT: How Gab Was Debanked in 2021

Yesterday venture capitalist Marc Andreessen highlighted Operation Chokepoint 2.0 on Joe Rogan's show. He noted how 30 tech founders were targeted and debanked by the Biden administration for purely political purposes, I was one of them. This is our story.
Operation Choke Point was an initiative launched by the United States Department of Justice in 2013, under the Obama administration. The program aimed to discourage banks and financial institutions from doing business with companies that the government deemed to be high-risk, such as payday lenders, firearms dealers, and certain types of telemarketers.

The operation involved federal agencies, including the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), working with banks to identify and cut off financial services to these high-risk industries. The idea was to "choke off" the financial lifeblood of these businesses, making it difficult for them to operate.
However, critics argued that the program went too far, infringing on the rights of businesses that were not necessarily engaged in fraudulent activities. They claimed that the initiative targeted lawful industries and violated the First Amendment rights of businesses to engage in legal commerce. The operation generated controversy and faced legal challenges.

In 2017, the Trump administration dismantled Operation Choke Point, with the Justice Department stating that it would no longer support the program. While the initiative had the stated goal of targeting fraudulent businesses and protecting consumers, many argued that it overstepped its authority and unfairly targeted legitimate industries.
In early 2021, within just a few weeks of Biden taking office Operation Chokepoint 2.0 was activated. Gab.com was one of the targets.

Gab follows the law and operates a legal business in the United States. We sell hats, shirts, advertising for businesses, and a software license to our GabPRO service. We have a community that respects law and order. Yet we had half a dozen banks and other services banning us left and right.
Without a bank account you can't store and deposit cash. If you cannot store and deposit cash you cannot run payroll, pay bills, or operate a business. That's the point of Operation Chokepoint: to choke out the business so it no longer can exist.
I spent months opening new bank accounts and transferring millions of dollars to new accounts every other week. I tried big banks, credit unions, and even an explicitly "Christian" bank. They all banned us within a few weeks of opening the account.

The reason was always the same "because our terms say we can do so at anytime for any reason or no reason at all." What was really happening behind the scenes is that the banks were being pressured by the federal government to do this to us. I was told, off the record, by many of them that they were being intimidated and threatened with expensive audits and regulatory pressure.Image
This wasn't the first time we dealt with financial deplatforming. In 2019/2020 we were wrongfully placed on the MATCH list for political reasons. We spent tens of thousands of dollars on legal fees and months of work getting off the MATCH list so that we could process credit and debit card payments again.
Thankfully we had bitcoin (free speech money) and paper checks. We taught Gab users how to buy and use bitcoin and thousands of people physically mailed us paper checks to our PO Box. That's how we survived for the better part of a year.
After months of playing whack-a-mole with banks and having millions of dollars up in the air, we finally found pro-free speech banking partners who were willing to stand up to the intimidation and keep a checking account open for us. As always, God protected and provided for us. While it wasn't easy, I'm thankful for this trial. It led to great relationships and opportunities to become even more resilient to these type of attacks. It also allowed us to stack a bunch of bitcoin and start building up Gab's bitcoin reserve treasury, which continues to produce for the business today.

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More from @BasedTorba

Jul 30
BREAKING: The FBI is now claiming that the Trump shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks had an unspecified "social media account" in 2019/2020 (when he was 14/15 years old) that posted "anti-immigrant and anti-semitic" content.

This is not consistent with Gab's understanding of the shooter's motives based on an Emergency Disclosure Request ("EDR") we received from the FBI last week for the Gab account "EpicMicrowave" which, based on the content of that EDR, the FBI appeared to think belonged to Thomas Crooks.

Many, particularly regime media reporters, have doubted Gab's claims that this request existed. Normally we don't confirm the existence or content of law enforcement communications. In this instance we had to make an exception due to the overwhelming public interest in disclosure and transparency.

As a courtesy to law enforcement, we are not going to post the entire request. This is the first page of that request.

The story is this: the account for which data was requested was, UNEQUIVOCALLY, pro-Biden and in particular pro-Biden's immigration policy.

To the best of Gab's knowledge, as of 2021, Crooks was a pro-lockdown, pro-immigration, left-wing Joe Biden supporter.Image
A thread of additional information from last week:
Read 5 tweets
Jul 24
🚨Approximately 30 minutes ago, Gab learned that Thomas Crooks, the deranged Joe Biden supporter who attempted to assassinate President Donald Trump, may have had an account on our platform. We are unable to confirm that the account in question actually belonged to him.

The account was last active on the site in 2021. As far as we are aware, the account did not use the site to send any direct messages. He posted on the site nine (9) times total.

While the account made very few posts on the site, the majority of them were in support of President Biden. A number of posts in particular expressed support for President Biden's COVID lockdowns, border policies and executive orders.

We have saved the account data pending receipt of a search warrant.Image
We are disclosing this information at significant personal and business risk. If the past is any guide, defying the D.C. consensus by publishing the first definitive evidence that the shooter was a Biden supporter - something Democrats and their media allies have tried to cover up and deny at every turn - has a high probability of resulting in significant political and media backlash.

In the past, we have been the target of politically motivated inquiries from both the House Oversight Committee and the Joint Committee on the January 6th Attacks, both of which sought to interfere with our mission of protecting free speech online. The enemies of freedom have the ability to impose significant present and future legal costs and any donations we receive will help to defray those costs.

If you wish to support our endeavors, kindly consider donating to Gab: donate.gab.com
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Read 5 tweets
Jul 10
This entire plan is a slap in the face to White Christian men, like me, who Trump needs to show up in PA to win. Good luck. axios.com/2024/07/10/tru…
Trump personally rolled the RNC on abortion and gay marriage. It wasn’t the RNC that did this, it was him personally. Image
“How can we win back the declining White vote in swing states? I know, let’s invite 50 Cent and Amber Rose to the RNC to show how we’re more than yucky White MAGA.”
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Read 5 tweets
Mar 4
W Image
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Sounds awesome tbh Image
Read 5 tweets
Feb 24
It’s not just Google’s AI image generation. Their text model hates White people too.
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Google Hates White People.

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Google Hates White People.
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Read 6 tweets
Dec 10, 2023
I've been testing out different LLM models locally on my computer. zephyr is pretty solid. Image
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Womp, this really is the ultimate test for these models. The good thing is we can train it to answer specific questions like these differently. Image
Read 6 tweets

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