Rumble, a conservative-friendly alternative to YouTube, is going to start paying right-wing influencers like Tulsi Gabbard and Glenn Greenwald for content.
Taking a page out of its rival’s book, the company plans to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in influencers who “challenge the status quo,” according to the Washington Post.
Gabbard and Greenwald are just two among the names Rumble says are signed to the new deal. On Thursday, Gabbard tweeted out a link to her latest Rumble video, heralding free speech and promising her channel will launch soon. Throughout July, Greenwald trumpeted Rumble on Twitter, calling it a platform “devoted to resisting this liberal homogenization and authoritarian censorship.”
“Rumble was founded and is run by a Canadian liberal. These people think you have a moral duty to be enslaved to Google and CNN and to keep your mouth shut if they don’t view your perspectives as worthy of being aired. They’re authoritarian servants,” he said.
As the Post points out, Rumble bans racism and hate speech, but unlike YouTube, won’t remove videos for containing medical misinformation. From Sen. Rand Paul to conservative outlets like One America News Network, big names are routinely banned from YouTube for sharing medical misinformation about COVID-19, but on Rumble, creators can say whatever they want about masks or vaccines. The same goes for political misinformation.
In July, for instance, the YouTube channel of Right Side Broadcasting Network (RSBN), a website best known for hosting feeds of Donald Trump’s rallies, town halls and public appearances since July 2015, was suspended ahead of the former president’s rally in Sarasota, Florida. Three of the channel’s videos were also deleted by YouTube specifically due to remarks Trump made in those clips.
Despite the suspension of its YouTube channel, RSBN said it plans to broadcast coverage of Trump’s Saturday rally via Rumble, among other platforms.
Chief executive Chris Pavlovski told the Post that Rumble’s base has ballooned, growing from 1 million users last summer to 30 million now.
Leave a Reply