The founder of US free speech social media platform Gab has hit back at censorship calls from Australia’s anti-Semitism inquiry and mocked its attempts to silence him.
Andrew Torba shared sections of submissions from the Royal Commission on Anti-Semitism and Social Cohesion, a copy of the “direction not to publish” on his X account early on Friday morning.
In May Mr Torba refused to comply with demands from the royal commission, which Prime Minister Anthony Albanese set up in response to intense pressure from Jewish lobby groups after the Bondi Islamic terrorist attack, and stated that the Australian government had “declared war on free speech”.
The Australian Government’s “Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion” isn’t pleased with us. We received some “royal order” (lol, lmao even) not to publish this. Anyway, our lawyer literally told them to go to hell. The rest of what they sent us is redacted because they knew I was going to share it again.
— Andrew Torba (@BasedTorba) October 15, 2026
The submissions labelled Mr Torba’s comments as “equally inaccurate and intemperate”, and said that his response showed that Australia should have more powers to regulate foreign technology companies.
“Gab’s response provides a powerful indication of the attitude of some foreign social media platforms to any measure of accountability in Australia. A democratic society functioning under the rule of law cannot countenance the existence of a ‘parallel society’ of unconstrained speech online,” the document stated.
“The regulatory regime going forward in Australia needs to be robust enough to deal with companies at this extreme end of the spectrum. It is open to the Commission to find that Gab has engaged in disgraceful conduct and a serious failure of corporate social responsibility.”
Mr Torba wrote in response that the royal commission “isn’t pleased with us”.
“We received some ‘royal order’ (lol, lmao even) not to publish this. Anyway, our lawyer literally told them to go to hell. The rest of what they sent us is redacted because they knew I was going to share it again,” he wrote.
Back in May, Australia threatened US website Gab with jail time for publishing a gag order wrt a censorship hearing.
I responded by asserting my American client’s rights.
Australia wrote back again, objecting and referring to my conduct as “disgraceful.”
This was my reply. https://t.co/ED9vMTJ8vj
— Preston Byrne (@prestonjbyrne) October 15, 2026
Lawyer Preston Byrne also revealed on X that the royal commission had threatened to jail Mr Torba, and shared two of his reply, in which he stated that Gab was an American company that “will publish what it likes, when it likes”, and insisted that his client “owes no apology” for exercising his free speech rights.
He also stated that he had referred the gag order to the American government.
“I add, the Australian government threatened me, an American lawyer, with jail time for disclosing the existence of this document. I sent it to Congress. So… come get me, I guess?” he wrote.
Last month the Trump administration warned Australia against attempting to control American tech companies via its proposed Digital Duty of Care legislation, and stated: “The US government has made clear its opposition to foreign measures that result in extraterritorial censorship of protected speech by Americans online.”
Mr Torba has previously defied threats from Australia’s controversial eSafety Commissioner demanding censorship of a video, and refused to comply with an order from the Australian government to identify a user who allegedly made offensive posts about Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
He also refused to back down to demands from the German government to identify a user who called a politician fat, and said he would never comply with requests from the UK government to identify anti-immigration protesters.
Header image: Left, Andrew Torba. Right, Commissioner Virginia Bell (Royal Commission).
