What is gab: A bastion of free speech or an alt-right echo chamber

Abstract

Over the past few years, a number of new fringe communities, like 4chan or certain subreddits, have gained traction on the Web at a rapid pace. However, more often than not, little is known about how they evolve or what kind of activities they attract, despite recent research has shown that they influence how false information reaches mainstream communities. This motivates the need to monitor these communities and analyze their impact on the Webs information ecosystem. In August 2016, a new social network called