Rumble
Rumble is a Canadian video-sharing platform founded in 2013 by entrepreneur Chris Pavlovski to compete with YouTube, emphasizing a neutral content policy that would not remove videos based on political viewpoint. For most of its first decade Rumble remained a minor player, but the mass deplatforming wave that accompanied the 2020 U.S. election, COVID-19 policy debates, and the subsequent Twitter Files revelations drove millions of creators and viewers to seek alternatives to YouTube's increasingly aggressive content moderation — a wave Rumble was positioned to catch. By the mid-2020s Rumble had become the primary alternative video platform for UAP disclosure researchers, secret space program whistleblowers, independent journalists, and political commentators who had been removed from or threatened by mainstream platforms.
Early history and Google lawsuit
Rumble initially attracted content creators frustrated with YouTube's monetization policies, which could demonetize channels without explanation or appeal. Pavlovski built the platform with a simple premise: Rumble would not override its creators' monetization even for controversial content, and would not suppress videos in search results based on viewpoint.
As early as 2021, Rumble filed suit against Google, alleging that Google's ownership of YouTube gave it an anti-competitive incentive to bury Rumble-hosted videos in Google Search results. Tulsi Gabbard, discussing the suit, noted: "they're filing a lawsuit against Google right now for that reason because rumble.com is maybe one of the alternatives to YouTube and they're alleging that Google is suppressing them." Joe Rogan admitted he had never heard of Rumble until that discussion, a measure of how invisible the platform remained to mainstream audiences before 2021.
Growth after 2021: alternative platform ecosystem
Rumble went public on NASDAQ in September 2022, raising approximately $400 million and giving it capital to pursue major creator partnerships. The same year, Rumble acquired Locals, a community subscription platform founded by Dave Rubin, creating an integrated ecosystem in which creators could host both free long-form video on Rumble and paid subscriber communities on Locals. Glenn Greenwald described migrating his live nightly show, System Update, to Rumble specifically because of this infrastructure: "I recently moved from Substack to Rumble because I have a nightly show called System Update at 7:00 PM Eastern... and then the written journalism I do is now on Locals, a part of the Rumble ecosystem."
Greenwald's show branded itself explicitly against YouTube, with Greenwald introducing episodes as airing "exclusively here on Rumble, the free speech alternative to YouTube." Tucker Carlson similarly moved his independent show, the Tucker Carlson Network, to Rumble after his April 2023 termination from Fox News, reaching audiences that dwarfed his cable ratings. Russell Brand, following accusations and temporary YouTube demonetization in 2023, announced a full-time move to Rumble.
Mike Benz, founder of the Foundation for Freedom Online and former U.S. State Department cyber official, cited Rumble's Pavlovski as a central figure in the resistance to what he called the censorship industrial complex: "Have you talked to Chris Pavlovski from Rumble? I would say Chris Pavlovski from Rumble... [would be] really interesting for their take on what they're doing against and about Censorship Issues from the independent platform side."
UAP and alternative knowledge content
Rumble became a significant distribution channel for content that YouTube's algorithm and moderators actively suppressed. Michael Salla's Exopolitics Today maintained a Rumble presence alongside YouTube, using the former as insurance against deplatforming. Steven Greer's Disclosure Project-related content, interviews with secret space program claimants including Penny Bradley, Arkheim Ra, and other figures associated with the Montauk Project, and Project Camelot's archive of interviews with figures like Bill Wood on Project Looking Glass all found permanent hosting on Rumble after those videos were removed or demonetized from YouTube.
The Travis Walton abduction case's 1996 Dreamland interview with Art Bell, content that predated YouTube entirely, was also hosted on Rumble, illustrating the platform's role in preserving archival alternative knowledge content that existed outside the YouTube ecosystem.
A 2023 interview with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. by Daniel Liszt (Dark Journalist) on media suppression, originally described as a "banned video" on other platforms, was hosted on Rumble with the description preserved intact, illustrating the platform's archive function for politically sensitive content.
Regulatory pressure and anti-censorship stance
The growth of Rumble as a meaningful alternative to YouTube attracted regulatory pressure from the European Union and from Canadian regulators seeking to apply Broadcasting Act obligations — obligations designed for television — to internet video platforms. Pavlovski refused EU demands to remove content related to the Ukraine war, stating publicly in 2023 that Rumble would not comply with orders to remove content that was legal in its home jurisdiction. The censorship industrial complex infrastructure documented in the Twitter Files — which coordinated content suppression across YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter — found Rumble resistant to the same pressure mechanisms because Rumble did not participate in the same government-academic-NGO partnerships that had created leverage over the major platforms.
Benz framed this dynamic as part of a larger proxy war: "free speech is caught in this proxy war between what I call the blob... the foreign policy establishment of the U.S." and populist movements worldwide — with alternative platforms like Rumble representing the infrastructure of the resistance.
Canada's Online Streaming Act (Bill C-11), passed in 2023, was widely criticized by free speech advocates as designed to subject platforms like Rumble to Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) oversight and mandatory Canadian content promotion algorithms — a form of algorithmic manipulation that Rumble argued would compromise its neutrality pledge.
Congressional attention
Rumble's CEO Pavlovski appeared before U.S. congressional committees examining the censorship of political speech on social media platforms. Alongside representatives of X and other alternative media companies, Pavlovski testified about the mechanisms by which government-funded organizations pressured mainstream platforms to suppress accounts — mechanisms that Rumble had resisted. Benz specifically identified Rumble's leadership, alongside congressional members like Dan Bishop and Jim Jordan, as among the most informed voices on the institutional structure of censorship operations.