Gab’s Twitter Account Gets Unverified After Sour Grapes Blog Post About Elon Musk
Twitter can be pretty quiet about its decisions regarding verified users. Some individuals have woken up one morning to find themselves verified, without a request. Others submit a request only to have it denied. Twitter usually does not say why.
Understanding that, there is no official statement about why Gab.com’s Twitter account is no longer verified. Was it an error, a response to something posted on the site or elsewhere, or backlash? Well, CEO Andrew Torba believes it’s a punishment for daring to post a blog essay criticizing Elon Musk.
There are a few interesting things about all this. First of all, the blog post looks a lot like sour grapes, considering that just a few weeks ago, Torba was begging Musk to dump his money into Gab, in exchange for a board seat, instead of Twitter.
Now he says
Unlike Mr. Musk I don’t answer to anyone outside of God almighty, especially not moneychangers.
and
What I know for certain is that I fully control Gab as its supermajority shareholder and sole Board member.
and
Elon can have Twitter.
Uh-huh.
Second, in his previous post, Torba was praising Musk’s devotion to “bringing more free speech to the internet for more people” — but now he believes that Musk is punishing him for criticism by snatching back his precious blue checkmark.
Finally, perhaps the most important thing — while a lot of conservatives are crediting Musk for a boost in followers, and “testing” their ability to post things that have been against Twitter’s rules — is that while Twitter and Musk have reached an agreement, the deal hasn’t gone through yet.
The New York Times reports that the deal doesn’t close for another three to six months — so Musk isn’t controlling the site at the moment.
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