Gab, a Twitter-style social media platform has been taken offline after several of its technology providers withdrew their support. The moves come after it emerged that Robert Bowers, the man accused of shooting and killing eleven people at a Pittsburgh synagogue on Saturday, was a heavy user of the platform.

Gab markets itself as a defender of “free speech and expression”, boasting nearly 800,000 users, but has faced heavy criticism for providing far-right figureheads with an outlet, often after they have been banned from other social media platforms for hate speech.

The company has acknowledge that a verified account has been active on its service with details matching those of Bowers, who attacked the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. Bowers account posted several anti-Semitic messages on the platform, and in a final update posted shortly before the attack, wrote “Screw your optics, Im going in”.

Gab has stated it has a “zero tolerance” policy towards terrorism and violence, and is “ready and willing to work with law enforcement”, but also noted that Bowers had accounts on other social networks, singling Twitter out for criticism and adding that no-one was calling for its closure.

Among the technology companies who severed relationships with Gab were PayPal, which banned the company from using its money-transfer service, and domain registration and hosting service GoDaddy, which provided Gab with a 24 hour warning to find another provider. Prior to recent events, Gab had already had its app banned from both the Apple and Google app stores, and Microsoft ceased hosting Gab its Azure cloud platform in September.