The Shape of Things To Come? Visa Bans Gab and Its Founder Andrew Torba

Jan. 15 , 2021 (EIRNS)—Financial mega-firm Visa has banned Gab, its founder Andrew Torba and his family from electronic payment services now and in the future. Gab is a free-speech alternative to Twitter used by many Trump followers. As Gab’s Andrew Torba explained: “We were told this week that not only is Gab blacklisted by Visa as a business, but my personal name, phone number, address, and more are all also blacklisted by Visa. If I wanted to leave Gab tomorrow (something that isn’t going to happen) and start a lemonade stand, I wouldn’t be able to obtain merchant processing for it.

“Simply because my name is Andrew Torba.

“If my wife wants to start a business she won’t be able to obtain merchant processing because she lives at the same address as me and would be flagged by Visa.”

Comparing his treatment to the Social Credit Score system in China, Torba explains how Visa watches his site, and if a new payment processor is connected, Visa will go to them to shut down the processing, saying that Gab is guilty of “hate speech.”

He writes: “ ‘Hate speech,’ is of course not illegal in the United States of America and is protected by the First Amendment. As I have written, it’s not real and I refuse to acknowledge it as a term.”