While online video platform Rumble has long been criticism To amplify right-wing disinformation and conspiracy theories, the video hosting service is preparing to go in an even darker direction, hiring one of Alex Jones’ lawyers to draft the policies. new content moderation aimed at removing the existing ban on material that incites or incites hate groups.
In June, Rumble assigned one of Jones’ longtime defamation attorneys in charge of revising the site’s moderation rules. And he’s made some disturbing changes.
The attorney, Robert Barnes, is a frequent Infowars guest and Jones’ top Sandy Hook defamation attorney for more than three years. But while Barnes wasn’t in the Texas courtroom during the explosive final days of Jones’ recent multi-million-dollar setback, he stepped up to broadcast a “opening speech” for a critical shadow jury: the Infowars audience.
Rumble — which has business ties to prominent Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, billionaire tech and political investor Peter Thiel, and Ohio Senate candidate JD Vance — has tapped. Barnes this spring, just as the Sandy Hook trial was heating up. Working alongside Canadian attorney and Rumble content producer David Freiheit (aka “Viva Frei”), Barnes removed current language that explicitly prohibits material that advocates or incites fringe groups, including including — by name — the Ku Klux Klan and white extremist groups.
The site announced the changes in June with a internal blog post and Press Release. Barnes-Frei . Proposed Strips current policy language ban “Content or material” that the “online community” deems “severely offensive”.
“Recommended moderation policies were designed by top Rumble and Locals creators Robert Barnes and David Freiheit, both good attorneys,” a Press Release notice the changes said. “Under the proposed policies, creators will be able to express themselves to interested audiences within the bounds of the law and free of harassment, while ensuring a consistent and transparent process when The platform continues to grow rapidly.”
Rumble’s current terms—Last modified in early January — pretty specific about banned content.
“Under no circumstances will the following be sent to the Rumble Service,” the policy says. It then specifies several types of violations, including material that “encourages, supports, or instigates” violent individuals or groups, such as those “associated with Antifa, the KKK, and skin extremist groups.” white and or those affiliated with these groups”.
The provisions proposed by Barnes not only remove the naming of such groups, but also say nothing about content promoting hate groups. Furthermore, the proposal also removes plain language to make it clear that these rules apply to user-submitted content.
The Press Release and internal notifications quoted Barnes as saying that the proposal “would provide a free space for open discussion without political discrimination” while “simultaneously protecting users from harassment”.
The only discrimination Freiheit mentions is in the protection against “non-discriminatory enforcement” of these rules.
While the proposed policy would prohibit “discrimination against others on the basis of their legally protected status,” the policy—unlike the existing provisions—does not apply this rule in an unbiased way. explicitly for uploaded content.
Additionally, the proposed terms apply this non-discrimination policy only to Rumble users, not to others outside the platform who may also be targeted, “such as hacking.” other users or content creators on the platform based on that user’s race, religion, or other legally protected status. “
The notice also notes that Rumble wants to protect users from “bad faith users of the platform whose behavior discourages use of the service and who engage in illegal discriminatory practices.” “, focusing on “tracking”.
Notably, this policy does not provide guidance on content that incites hate groups. It also doesn’t appear to ban hate groups or their ambassadors from using the platform — to radicalize and recruit, for example — as long as they don’t post discriminatory material.
However, Rumble and the lawyers behind the new policy claim that the update will result in a cleaner, safer user experience. They do so in a lengthy and often redundant explanation, crammed with right-wing complaints about “destroying culture” and mentioning “freedom of speech” nine times.
You can read the full announcement here.
Rumble, a Canadian company with headquarters in the US in Sarasota, Florida, bills itself as an alternative to YouTube that is “immune to cultural cancellation”. The platform boasts 44 million monthly visitors, New York Times report This year, and despite protests from users and leaders about partisanship and politicization, it cut business deals with a number of prominent political figures.
Those figures include Trump, Vance and Thiel, who have invested tens of millions of dollars in Republican candidates this year — including a Vance backer.
Rumble also has a business relationship with former Representative Devin Nunes (R-CA) through technology agreement with Trump Media and its Truth Social social media platform. It also has a business deal with right-wing commentator Dan Bongino – himself a Rumble powerhouse – who bought back shares of Rumble when it handshake cooperation in January with a payment processing company co-founded by Bongino. (Trump himself left Trump Media in an unannounced exodus of leadership in June, along with former Trump administration official Kash Patel and eldest son Don Jr.)
Rumble’s claims to be apolitical also directly conflict with the timing of Vance and Thiel’s investments.
Vance, through his company, Narya, lead to a Rumble funding round with Thiel last May — about two months after Thiel put $10 million into a super PAC backing Vance. In the deal, a partner at Narya, Ethan Fallang, got a seat on Rumble’s board.
That made Vance and Thiel Rumble’s first outside investors, a fact Vance touted on the campaign trail.
Of course, at the time of the investment, Vance was not an official candidate. However, an outdated personal loan which Vance later filed with the Federal Election Commission showed that he was in fact pouring money into what would become his campaign, acknowledging that he had acted as a candidate at least is from that day.
And Vance’s campaign loan date, worth $100,000, is May 19 — the same day Rumble announced Vance and Thiel’s investment. According to one revised financial disclosure Vance filed this April, he personally holds between $115,000 and $300,000 in the company.
But that investment has been met with a lot of criticism, as Rumble is often cited as a breeding ground for misinformation and radicalization — which, combined with its growing popularity, has led to expert on extremism raise alarm.
About a week before Vance and Thiel announced their investment, WIRED publish one investigative report shows that Rumble not only provides home misinformation, but also constantly promotes it through its recommendations to users. New York Times recently report that “Rumble’s vision of democratizing online speech has so far mostly appealed to the right people,” including “many extremists using their Rumble accounts to deny the effectiveness of vaccines.” beg, downplaying the terrible man about Russian aggression in Ukraine and questioning the legitimacy of the 2020 election.”
Some of that stuff is actually reminiscent of Barnes, in his role as Jones’s defamation attorney Sandy Hook.
The families of the Sandy Hook victims sued Jones for repeatedly claiming the massacre was a false flag, saying those claims fueled unfounded anger in his audience and led to threats to their lives.
Rumble itself laid the groundwork for the “false flag” narratives of mass shootings—including Sandy Hook—As well as many popular videos making similar baseless claims about the recent attacks in Buffalo, Uvalde, and Highland Park. The site even manually selected one of those false flags video as “Editor’s Pick”.
After the Uvalde massacre, the Department of Homeland Security issued a warning that “the continued dissemination of false or misleading accounts” about the recent shootings, combined with other factors , can “inspire individuals to campaign for violence”.
However, the editors of Rumble introduced a video opens with the user removing the guarantee that the Buffalo and Uvalde shootings are not false flags.
“Now you just have to avoid all the perfectly legal, out-of-the-forest shootings that are happening all around us. Because it’s not psyop at all, it’s not fake flags at all, this is just our new normal. No. Damn this noise,” said the user. (Same Rom account posted a video after the Buffalo shooting that opened with the attacker’s live stream.)
Spokesperson for Rumble, Trump and Vance — who has Is called Alex Jones is “a much more reputable source of information than Rachel Maddow”—did not respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment.
But in March, a spokesman for the Vance campaign guard his investment to the Associated Press amid criticism that Rumble was hosting Russia Today, a propaganda agency sponsored by the Kremlin.
“Rumble has consistently advocated for free speech on its platform — even speech where it might be offensive,” the spokesperson said, comparing the site’s philosophy to Twitter’s. Korea and Ayatollah Khomeini (to name a few) to continue their propaganda. “
Rumble is still soliciting user feedback on the proposed content policy. The site predicts that process will end this year.
