The founder of free speech platform Gab has refused to hand over data about a user who allegedly made “offensive” posts about Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
Gab CEO Andrew Torba revealed on Friday morning that the Australian government made an “emergency” data request for posts made by a Gab user about Mr Albanese late the previous night.
“Apparently in Australia s474.17 Criminal Code (Commonwealth) 1995 can get you locked up for a year for offending someone on the internet,” Mr Torba wrote on X.
“Anyway, we told them to get bent.”
Late last night Gab got an “emergency” data request from the Australian government for “offensive” posts made by a user about their Prime Minister. Apparently in Australia s.474.17 Criminal Code (Commonwealth) 1995 can get you locked up for a year for offending someone on the…
— Andrew Torba (@BasedTorba) February 20, 2025
The data request came at exactly the same time as Telegram carried out a mass banning of Australian nationalist channels, which right-wing dissidents believe must have been done as a result of an Australian government request.
Mr Torba later addressed the Telegram ban-wave and a similar spate of bans on X earlier this month in a separate post.
“Our Australian users are reporting a surge in censorship from other platforms this week. These other platforms are capitulating and banning Australian citizens at the direction of the Australian government,” he wrote.
“Gab, as an American company, has a well-documented and public history of rejecting foreign government demands to censor speech protected by U.S. law. We refuse to bow to tyrannical and dystopian foreign regulations that infringe on free speech.
“We welcome the citizens of Australia to speak freely on our platform.”
Our Australian users are reporting a surge in censorship from other platforms this week. These other platforms are capitulating and banning Australian citizens at the direction of the Australian government. Gab, as an American company, has a well-documented and public history of… https://t.co/77kYeZPZAf
— Andrew Torba (@BasedTorba) February 21, 2025
Gab and Mr Torba have consistently refused to comply with censorship demands from the Australian government, including in April last year when threatened with a $782,500 by eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant if videos of the alleged stabbing of a Sydney bishop were not removed.
Ms Inman Grant also demanded Meta and X remove the videos, but in October abandoned legal action against X, which only restricted them for Australian users.
In August last year Mr Torba slammed his Big Tech social media competitors for giving UK police data on anti-immigration protesters, and weeks later refused to cooperate with a German government request that Gab identify a user who “denigrated the weight” of an obese bisexual female Greens politician.
Header image: Left, Andrew Torba. Right, Anthony Albanese.
