As the fortress of Gab stands resilient against bot invasions, especially during the frenzy of election seasons, we've been on the frontlines, crafting defenses that secure the integrity of our online community. Today, I'm here to share the trenches' tales and triumphs—we've innovated robust systems to filter out the chaff, ensuring our users revel in a meaningful and respectful digital experience. Join me, Andrew Torba, Gab CEO, as we discuss the latest developments including media upload limits, designed to deter bots, and the exclusive perks that Gab Pro users now enjoy, like unprecedented control over their digital interaction space.
On a more personal note, I open up about the ethos of legacy within the realms of family, community, and enterprise. As we traverse these unpredictable times, the conversation turns to resilience and readiness, not just in fortifying Gab but also in nurturing the seeds of prosperity in our personal and spiritual spheres. Embarking on the creation of a Parallel Christian Society, I reflect on the enduring values that guide us. Tune in for an episode that weaves technical innovation with the timeless pursuit of constructing a robust, faith-rooted legacy.
As the fortress of Gab stands resilient against bot invasions, especially during the frenzy of election seasons, we've been on the frontlines, crafting defenses that secure the integrity of our online community. Today, I'm here to share the trenches' tales and triumphs—we've innovated robust systems to filter out the chaff, ensuring our users revel in a meaningful and respectful digital experience. Join me, Andrew Torba, Gab CEO, as we discuss the latest developments including media upload limits, designed to deter bots, and the exclusive perks that Gab Pro users now enjoy, like unprecedented control over their digital interaction space.
On a more personal note, I open up about the ethos of legacy within the realms of family, community, and enterprise. As we traverse these unpredictable times, the conversation turns to resilience and readiness, not just in fortifying Gab but also in nurturing the seeds of prosperity in our personal and spiritual spheres. Embarking on the creation of a Parallel Christian Society, I reflect on the enduring values that guide us. Tune in for an episode that weaves technical innovation with the timeless pursuit of constructing a robust, faith-rooted legacy.
Hello everyone. My name is Andrew Torba. I'm the CEO of Gabcom and your host of the Parallel Christian Society podcast. It's been a couple of weeks. You know I'm a busy guy folks. I got three young children and they keep me extremely busy and we've been really busy here at Gab. So I haven't been doing as many podcasts as I would like, but I hope that that changes soon. I'd like to get out at least one or two a month just to sit down and sort of chat with the Gab community, let you guys know what we're working on, what's going on, and give you some updates, just so that you can follow along and understand sort of what we're dealing with behind the scenes here, which is a lot.
Speaker 1:
We've been sort of under an onslaught of bot attacks. You know it's probably because it's an election season. We tend to see this stuff sort of ramp up during election years and of course you know this is a presidential election year, so it tends to be even worse during those. And you know the bots have been flooding not only Gab but also on X. The porn bots over there are absurd. It's really really bad. Thankfully the ones that we have are not porn bots, because we have a lot of systems in place that we've developed over the years to automatically detect and flag that type of stuff and remove it immediately, and so we have very little issues with that problem. Praise the Lord for that, because we ban that stuff completely and, you know, x does not, x allows it, and so they have sort of a more tricky situation than we do because they allow that stuff on their platform and so, you know, the bot operators are taking full advantage of that. So we did make some tremendous progress on our storage problem. So, for those of you who don't know, you know we own and operate our own infrastructure, and you know, because we are not allowed basically to use cloud hosting providers like Amazon AWS, for example, and so that means that we have physical servers in a data center and physical hard drives, and so our drives have been filling up because we've been under attack by bots that are sort of signing up and uploading large files and stuff, and so we made this change back in March to only allow pro users to upload media.
Speaker 1:
Change back in March to only allow pro users to upload media, and that bought us a lot of time to sort of work on another solution for this problem Because at the time, you know, in March, we were only a few weeks away from basically having our hard drives be completely full, and if that were the case then Gab would probably be offline. So we had to do something pretty drastic and pretty quickly. And so, you know, we had about six weeks where we limited pro uploads to only Gab pro users and verified users, and that bought us a lot of time to sort of solve the problem in other ways and optimize the data that we were currently storing and reduce, you know, the amount that was taking up space in the hard drives. And so we opened up Gab Media Uploads back up to free users, but with a limit, so there's like a 50 megabyte limit per day on that, and that's to help thwart the bots and also to provide some more value to our Gab Pro subscribers as well. So there's the update on that front.
Speaker 1:
We also just launched a new feature for GabPro users to have better control over their comment section, so your posts can now only be commented on by who you decide it could be. Everybody on the site can comment on your stuff. It could be only pro and verified and donor users. So you know, basically real people you know, not bots or not free users that are just, you know, signing up and creating brand new accounts to harass people or whatever. And then the third option is to have no comments whatsoever. So you know, the control is in your hands. This is a great feature that X has. It's one that I use over there often and you know I wanted it myself on Gab and I know a lot of people have been asking for this for quite some time. So this is a new pro feature. It gives you more control over your comment section on your profile right. So if you don't want anybody commenting on your posts, you could set it like that. If you only want you know pro people or verified people that are, you know, actual human beings, not bots or not people that are just here to harass and try to drive people off of Gab with their nonsense, you know, on newly created accounts, you can prevent those people from commenting on your posts. So you now have more control and that's a brand new pro feature.
Speaker 1:
We're also working on a big update to Gab AI, so we're going to be updating the model that we're using there and you're going to notice that it's going to get better and better, and we're also sort of transitioning into basically creating a AI powered Wikipedia alternative that you can actually engage with. So we're creating these pages for all of these characters that we have, you know, historical figures and things of this nature, and and on the page it has basic information about them, some top questions that people ask about them and then some basic biographical details, if it's a real person, and then you can actually communicate with that page and ask that character or that historical figure, different questions, and that's where the sort of the character concept that we have comes into play, and anyway, so it's going to be like this AI-powered Wikipedia alternative, which is really interesting questions and that's where the sort of the character concept that we have comes into play, and anyway, so it's going to be like this AI powered Wikipedia alternative, which is really interesting, it's really compelling and I'm excited for you guys to see sort of the work that we're doing on that front. We have a lot more things in the pipeline that we're working on right now and it's going to be a great summer. You know, I'm very optimistic about the direction that Gab is heading in right now and we're in a place financially now where we're able to sustain long-term and I'll keep you guys posted on that.
Speaker 1:
You know, listen, there's sort of a bare minimum amount that Gab needs to operate and it's in the six figures every month. You know, between the data centers, legal accounting, operations, internet costs, data center costs. You know our team, you know it. It costs a lot to to keep a website of this size up and running and we are fully dependent on support from the people in the Gab community in order to make that possible. You know we're not a public company. We didn't raise tens of millions of dollars from hedge funds and venture capitalists. We're fully dependent on support from the community and so we appreciate you guys that have upgraded to pro or that have donated or made a purchase on the Gab shop or run ads for your business on Gab. We really appreciate you guys because you guys are making Gab possible for everybody. So we encourage you to support the work that we're doing.
Speaker 1:
You know it's interesting to me that there's people that you know sit on Gab and get a ton of value from Gab, and you know sometimes they're on Gab for five, six hours a day, every day for years on end, and so you know, we really encourage you. If that is you, if you're getting value from Gab, please consider contributing and helping us to stay online, because without people supporting the platform, you know, we can't stay online. It's just that simple. We are 100% dependent on people like you to support us and to help us. You know, keep the platform online. You know this is not a free operation. It costs money. We have bills to pay, we have families to feed, and so if you enjoy the platform, if you get value from the platform, we encourage you to support the work that we're doing, and you can do that in a number of ways. You can donate, you can purchase a hat or a mug or a shirt from our shop, you can run ads for your business on cab, or you can upgrade to gab pro for 10 bucks a month now. And that that is what I would encourage the most of, because what it helps us with sort of a predictable revenue stream. If we have, you know, more people that are signed up for the reoccurring monthly plan of 10 bucks a month, it helps us sort of with predictable revenue to know, like, okay, we're going to be able to cover our costs this month, right, so I would encourage you. If you, that's sort of the best way that you can help support us is, for as little as 10 bucks a month, you can help make Gab possible and help keep Gab online. So thank you guys for your support.
Speaker 1:
I just wanted to do sort of a quick podcast here to update you guys on what we're working on and the things that we've accomplished over the past six weeks or so since I last checked in. I'm incredibly optimistic about the future. I think that a lot of people are going to be sorely disappointed this election season, and that's why I'm not at all focused on politics or on this election cycle. You know, I'm focused on the long term and building, and I would encourage you you know, as I have been encouraging people for many years now to sort of not get swept up in. You know these election cycles and these election results. You know we didn't do anything about 2020. And so you shouldn't expect a different outcome, you know, in 2024. So you know, don't be surprised when things don't go the way that you sort of anticipated them going and sort of be mentally prepared to have them, you know, go horribly wrong, and so we cannot put our faith in politicians, we cannot put our faith in the political system. We need to put our faith in Christ and center our focus on building building our families, building our local churches, our local communities, our patronage networks, infrastructure, media, education, entertainment. This is the Parallel Christian Society podcast. Right, and so that is what we're focused on doing here. It's not the political society podcast or whatever. It's building a parallel Christian society.
Speaker 1:
Fundamentally, I think this topic about Christian nationalism is continuing to gain steam, and I think that our enemies, and perhaps even people on our side, sort of misunderstand what Christian nationalism is about. Christian nationalism is about nation building. It's about building Christian nations, and that starts by focusing on the microcosm of the nation, which is the family, and so we need to start there and play the long game. This is not going to be solved with an election or two, an election cycle or two. It's probably not even going to be solved in a generation or two. It's going to be a long game, and so we need to be willing to lay the foundation and lay the groundwork for the new Christendom today and get started on that today and not be distracted by the ebbs and flows of the current political order and the current political system, which may or may not be relevant to us a generation or two from now.
Speaker 1:
So that would be where I would center my focus. That is where I'm personally centering. My focus is on building building my family, building up my local church, building Gab. Obviously, in my focus, that is where I'm personally centering. My focus is on building building my family, building up my local church, you know, building Gab. Obviously, in my case, I would encourage you to build businesses that you can, you know, pass down as a legacy to your children, because the future is sort of very uncertain and there's a lot of things in motion right now that are going to cause a lot of radical change, and so we need to be prepared and we need to keep our faith and keep building. So, anyway, just a little riff there. This is sort of a combo podcast of an update on what's going on, with Gab and me riffing a little bit on the Parallel Christian Society to keep us on topic with this podcast. So thank you guys for tuning in no-transcript.