The Current - How Rumble became the platform for creators banned elsewhere

Episode Date: October 23, 2024

Rumble may be a lesser-known social media site, but it’s been gaining momentum as a platform for content creators banned by bigger sites. Nora Young, from the CBC’s Visual Investigations Unit, digs into the Canadian-founded video platform’s soaring popularity.

In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news, so I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with Season 3 of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy.

On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is The Current Podcast. You know the major social media players, YouTube, Facebook, X, but have you heard of Rumble? It may not be a household name, at least not yet, but it's one of the world's fastest growing online platforms. And it's harboring many content creators who've been banned by some of the more mainstream networks. Take conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. All I've seen the last few years is preparation for martial law, civil unrest, race war is the cover for it, to try to

stop Trump. After countless platforms gave him the boot for spreading misinformation, he found a home in Rumble. Rumble's mission is to protect a free and open internet. Many of its users say it's one of the few remaining bastions of free speech on the internet. My colleague Nori Young is with the CBC's Visual Investigations Unit. She's here to help us decipher what led to this platform soaring popularity. Nori, good morning. Nice to see you. Good morning. Good to see you. So let's just sort of set the stage here. What exactly is Rumble? So it's a platform for content creators to share video. So you could say it's a YouTube competitor, but it has some important differences, especially in the way it deals with moderation,

which we can dig into. How many users does it have? Because the numbers I found a little surprising. Yeah, I mean, this year's second quarter results state they have average global monthly users of 53 million compared to 50 million in the first quarter of 2024. But that growth has been relatively recent, right? Rumble was founded in 2013, and it's just sort of ticked along.

And then things really took off around 2020. Rumble has said that from 2020 to 2023, Rumble increased its monthly active users 36 times over. And that was largely because of an influx of popular creators who were either demonetized by YouTube or were just seeking a platform that wouldn't censor their views. And Rumble said that growth is because at a time when many competing platforms began introducing more restrictive content moderation and monetization policies, Rumble attracted many new users and content creators through its commitment to freedom of expression and promoting the interests of content creators. And I've heard a couple of different versions of this. What's the Canadian connection here? And I've heard a couple of different versions of this.

What's the Canadian connection here? So it was founded in 2023 by two Canadians, one of them a tech entrepreneur, Chris Pavlovsky, who's from Brampton, Ontario, and he's now the CEO. And the interesting thing also about Rumble is the way that it's growing. Like in addition to just being this video sharing platform, they host True Social. That's the ex-clone started by Donald Trump's

media and technology group. And they're also advertising their cloud services as an alternative. And they have Rumble Advertising Center, which is their alternative to Google Ads. And we know what YouTube is because it's kind of one thing. We know what Facebook is because it's maybe a couple of things. How is Rumble different from those? Yeah, I mean, in terms of content, there's certainly a range of content available. But a key thing is that you can find content creators

who've been kicked off other platforms, right? Like conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who we just heard earlier. They also, for example, have Russell Brand, whose videos promoting COVID misinformation were demonetized on YouTube. And there are also figures like self-described misogynist Andrew Tate, who's been kicked off multiple platforms.

The situations men are in, if they were reversed, would be global tragedies. Let's take the war in Ukraine. Right now, there are men dying in a ditch, getting blown to smithereens in Ukraine. They've sent their wives away to Europe for safety, and their wives have found new husbands. We've got loads of stuff to talk to you about. Some of it is covering again, further information about the coverup around the vaccines. Like they covered up information about people being negatively affected, cardiovascular problems, that sort of stuff. So that's a little bit of Russell Brand on the end there. You know, so obviously YouTube is the platform giant,

but it's partly the type of content that differentiates Rumble. Whenever we talk about these social media companies, we end up talking about moderation. How does Rumble tackle moderation? Yeah, I mean, they tolerate a much greater range of speech than the mainstream competitors, although they do have terms of service that limit what you're supposed to be able to say, specifically content that's

racist, anti-Semitic, or promoting hate. They've also tied, as I said, that growth to resisting stringent content moderation. And this is where it becomes an interesting question, not just for, you know, for technologists, but just for all of us who use the internet, right? What's the appropriate amount of moderation and limitations on speech online? And what's the balance between free and open debate that we want versus the ability to publish material that might be misleading or harmful?

And that's obviously an ethical debate that we continue to have, but it's also a subject in the culture wars in the US and increasingly in Canada. I mean, it's an interesting fact that it's ongoing, right? And that where the needle is keeps moving. Rumble CEO Chris Pavlosky has defended his site. We've got a clip of him here speaking with the writer Glenn Greenwald. We're constantly under attack by the media. We're constantly under attack by, you know, everyone that doesn't like to hear independent voices, wants to silence voices. that doesn't like to hear independent voices, wants to silence voices.

So he says they're under attack. How does he defend his moderation policies and the accusations that the content on that platform is spreading not just misinformation, but dangerous misinformation? Yeah, I mean, Rumble has consistently presented that limited moderation as linked to what they call a, quote, free and open internet. Our CBC colleague Jonathan Monpetit reached out to Rumble for a few questions on this story. And a Rumble spokesperson wrote, The irony of a story on misinformation pushed by the CBC, which is funded by Trudeau's government, is almost too much to believe. The best antidote to misinformation is more information, which is exactly what Trudeau and the CBC do not want, end quote.

which is exactly what Trudeau and the CBC do not want, end quote. Can we even sort of compare how Rumble's approach to moderation compares to like the bigger platforms, say YouTube or Facebook? Yeah, I mean, I think you can, right? Like all these platforms have terms of service that dictate what you're supposed to be able to say and what you can't. And this question of appropriate moderation comes up often. Like, for example, in the US, the House Judiciary Committee has been investigating online moderation.

And Meta's Mark Zuckerberg recently said he, quote, regretted succumbing to pressure from the US government to remove COVID content. TikTok is currently facing a lawsuit alleging that a video hosted on its site led to the death of a child.

So these are broad concerns, broad political concerns. But meanwhile, social companies, social media companies all rely on legal protections that largely absolve them of responsibility for the content that they use as post. But I want to understand more about the thinking behind different takes on moderation. And so I spoke to Northwestern law professor Paul Gowder about why the largest social media companies tend to moderate as much as they do. And he said that for a company

the size of a Facebook, you have to appeal to as many people as possible. And so when you scale to essentially the entire world, number one, you need a lot of revenue, the kind of revenue that can really only be supplied by mainstream advertisers. So some of these smaller, more niche companies that might be targeted at a particular smaller audience have a lot less economic incentive to do the kinds of strict content moderating that the big companies try for. So, I mean, it's an ethical question. It's a political question, but it's also a bottom line question.

Right. I did a quick Google search of Rumble knowing you were coming to do this. And the first thing comes up is a bunch of legal battles, mostly around advertising, which I found really interesting because that's the big moneymaker for these platforms. There's one involving this firm called Check My Ads. Can you just walk me through what's happening there? Canadian and the company was founded in Canada. So the Check My Ads Institute was co-founded by Canadian Claire Atkin and by Nandini Jami. So they're always secret Canadians involved in these American issues. We're everywhere. So you have these two Canadians at the heart of this US culture war. And now Check My Ads is a group that focuses on critiquing problems in the digital advertising economy, which is a 700 billion with aS. dollars industry annually. And the premise of their work is that the opaque business of digital ads are funding misinformation and extremist content and contributing to the toxic character of our online lives.

So one of the things they've done is show when ads for products show up alongside controversial or offensive content. Because brands, of course, want what's called brand safety. And they say they're targeting bad faith publishers and they've issued several critical reports about Rumble. Because brands, of course, want what's called brand safety. And they say they're targeting bad faith producers, or publishers rather. And they've issued several critical reports about Rumble. So this is where we get to the lawsuit. Rumble's suing Atkin and Jammie for defamation.

And we can quickly get into the weeds on this, Peter. Weeds, yeah. You know I like the weeds. Yes. But the specific claim is that Check My Ads wrote about how Rumble claims to be anti-big tech, but alleged that they rely a lot on Google Ads for revenues. Now, Rumble says that Google Ads now represents a very small amount of their revenue stream.

There have been strong statements on both sides regarding the CMA lawsuit. The CEO, Pavlovsky, has said they have no choice but to hold anti-free speech zealots accountable. So, as you can imagine, we requested comment about the suit from the parties involved. Rumble said, we do not comment on pending litigation. Check My Ads told us due to the nature of our ongoing litigation, we cannot comment on Rumble's business mode. But we asked Claire Atkin of Check My Ads about how Rumble characterizes them,

including that zealots comment. And she referred us to their motion to dismiss Rumble's complaint. Check My Ads, and I'm going to read this quote. Sorry, it's a bit long, but I'll just read it. Go for it. CheckMyAds has a mission of making advertising markets transparent and seeks to give advertisers the ability to make informed choices about who hosts and profits from their ads. And then I'm paraphrasing, brands can choose whether they want to keep advertising on that platform. Quote, by filing defamation suits like this, she says, Rumble makes no secret of his desire to bring an end to this oversight. She also wrote to us, Rumble loves to talk about free speech when it comes to providing a platform for people who were kicked off YouTube for anti-Semitism, racism, health disinformation, or misogyny. They apparently

don't like free speech so much when it criticizes Rumble, end quote. There's a lot there. Can we just zoom out for a second? We just did this segment just before you came on about Elon Musk and how he's offering these million dollar lottery winners using his wealth and his platform, clearly at X, to steer the US election campaign. Can you put a finger on the kind of influence that rumble is having in in shaping the political narrative right now in the united states yeah i mean it's so interesting isn't it the role that all of these players are having and maybe in particular elon musk and and acts where it is right now i mean if you're talking strictly in terms of user numbers of course rumble is dwarfed

by giants like youtube but what's more relevant is its role as a place for right-wing opinion including opinions that you can't find on other social media platforms and then as i mentioned truth social that x clone started by donald trump is hosted by rumble's cloud services rumble was the exclusive broadcaster of the republican national convention and one of the backers of rumble is vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance. So there's a lot- Key point. That's a key point.

There's a lot going on there, right? And I think this is what is so interesting is the role that social media platforms are playing in shaping the conversation that we have in the actual political sphere. We've seen that most acutely in the US, of course, but we're starting to see that in Canada as well. Absolutely. I mean, we're at a weird point in the maturity of the debate over free

speech on the internet, of the role of these internet companies. With that in mind, what does the growing popularity of something like Rumble tell us about the larger debate and the struggle that these platforms are having when it comes to what is free speech? Where does moderation kind of find that fine line? I mean, this is the question, right? What's appropriate to moderate versus acceptable parameters of debate in an open society? And that's going to be very much a moving target. And the thing is that, you know, all of the social media platforms want to claim to be neutral platforms. They all kind of claim this. And they also claim that they're not responsible for the content that users post.

This is what the famous or infamous, depending on your point of view, Section 230 of the U.S. Telecommunications Act allows for. You can be a platform and you're not responsible for that content. And all the major platforms face calls to moderate that content, right? But the thing is that all those social media giants want to make money from not just content, but the most engaging content, right? And so therein lies a real tension in the nexus around the politics and the business models of these companies, right? Like, as law professor Paul Gowder reminded me, all the giant social media companies have something like an integrity team responsible for maintaining a long-term

standard for the platform, but they also have an engagement team responsible for driving time spent, active engagement with content, and so on. And we know from our long experience with social media, Peter, what drives engagement is not usually, you know, moderate, balanced, well-considered. Often fully in conflict. Yes, exactly. Yeah. So therein lies the huge tension that goes beyond Rumble to our broader situation that

we find ourselves in now. Well, fascinating work. I'm really glad you're able to do it and especially glad you're able to come on the show and talk about it. Thanks for this. My pleasure. Thank you so much. Nora Young is with the CBC's Visual Investigations Unit. For more CBC podcasts,

go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.