Rumble was founded in October 2013 by Chris Pavlovski as an alternative to YouTube for independent vloggers and smaller content creators.[1][6] Pavlovski founded the platform after seeing that Google was prioritizing influencers on YouTube and not independent content creators.[7] In its early years, Rumble saw only limited popularity. The platform received a large influx of viewership from 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Monthly visitors rose from 1.6 million in 2020, to 31.9 million by 2021.[8] In the first nine months of 2021, Rumble generated more than $6.5 million in revenue, mostly from advertisements, but was not profitable.[9]
The rise of Rumble viewership in 2020 was attributed to then Republican politician Devin Nunes, who accused YouTube of overly censoring his channel. Nunes began posting content on Rumble, with other prominent conservatives, such as Dinesh D'Souza, Dan Bongino, Sean Hannity, and Representative Jim Jordan, following soon after.[6][10][11] In June 2021, former US President Donald Trump joined Rumble in preparation for recording his Ohio campaign rally.[12]
On January 11, 2021, Rumble filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google over its search algorithms, seeking damages exceeding $2 billion.[13][14] Rumble alleged that Google manipulated its algorithm so as to favor Google's own YouTube over Rumble in Google search results. Rumble alleged that this direct manipulation reduced its viewership and resulted in lower advertising revenues for their company.[15] In August 2022, a California judge said that Rumble's case against Google can proceed.[16]
Rumble received investment from venture capitalists Peter Thiel, Vivek Ramaswamy and JD Vance in May 2021, with that round of funding valuing Rumble at around $500 million.[17] In October 2021, Rumble acquired Locals.[18] On December 14, 2021, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) announced that it entered a "wide-ranging technology and cloud services agreement" with Rumble in a statement that also stated that Rumble would operate part of Truth Social as well as TMTG.[19] Also in December 2021, Rumble challenged a New York law prohibiting hate speech on social media.[20]
In August 2022, Rumble announced plans to provide an online advertising platform known as Rumble Ads, with Truth Social as its first publisher.[21][22] Rumble became a publicly traded company in September 2022, trading under ticker RUM on the NASDAQ, after merging with a special-purpose acquisition company.[23] In May 2023, Rumble acquired the podcasting platform CallIn.[24]
In 2024, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission confirmed that Rumble was under an active investigation, the exact nature of which is unknown.[26] However, Pavlovski stated in January "short-lived investigation was part of a coordinated ploy by short sellers manipulating the market." The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission cleared Rumble from the investigation.[27]
Design and restrictions
Along with four other tabs in its main interface, Rumble features "recommended channels" to follow and an "Earnings" tab in its interface.[28] Rumble also allows its users to generate revenue from their videos.[28] Users upload videos that are licensed to Rumble's partners, such as Yahoo! and Microsoft News, after which money made from those videos is directly deposited into the Rumble account of the user.[28]
Using data from February 2021, researchers noted that several content creators have gained a receptive audience on Rumble after their content was pulled from YouTube or Facebook. They include Del Bigtree, Sherri Tenpenny, and Simone Gold.[44][45][46] According to a June 2021 article from Slate, "Pavlovski has recently become more outspoken in accusing Big Tech of censorship and now actively courts prominent conservatives and intellectual dark web figures to join Rumble."[35] It also hosted Truth Social as of June 2022.[47] In August 2021, Rumble reached agreements with former Democratic Representative Tulsi Gabbard and The Intercept founder Glenn Greenwald to start posting their videos to the site.[48]
As of August 15, 2022, Rumble reported 78 million monthly active users (MAU).[49] That month, after being banned from most other platforms for hate speech and harmful conduct, kickboxer and social media personality Andrew Tate began posting on Rumble. Tate's move coincided with a significant increase in downloads of the Rumble app.[50][51]
According to an August 2022 Reuters article, Rumble is 'better-funded' and 'more mainstream' than its competitors BitChute and Odysee. Reuters states that all three platforms 'include misinformation and conspiracy theories', with Rumble 'moderating more content' than the other two.[52] Unlike BitChute and Odysee, Rumble does suppress results when searching for some keywords associated with hate speech or extremism, although the content itself is still accessible.[52][53]
According to a May 2022 Pew Research Center study, 20% of American adults have heard of Rumble, while 2% regularly got their news from Rumble. Of regular users, 76% identified as Republicans or were Republican-leaning, while 22% identified as Democrats or were Democratic-leaning. Around 90% of Rumble users believed news hosted on the site was mostly accurate. Most of Rumble's 200 most prominent accounts at that time were run by individuals, 22% of whom had been banned from other social media platforms. 55% of these prominent accounts also had accounts on other websites such as YouTube. A June 2022 review of posts by Pew Research from Rumble's 200 most prominent accounts found that 49% had posted about guns or gun rights, 48% had posted about abortion, 44% had posted about LGBTQ topics (specifically the LGBTQ grooming conspiracy theory), 42% had posted about the January 6 Capitol attack, and 26% had posted about extreme vaccine skepticism.[54][55]
Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Rumble did not follow other social media platforms in banning Russian state media from their site. In November 2022, Rumble was blocked in France, after their refusal to comply with the country's demand for the removal of Russian state media accounts.[41][56]
In December 2023, Rumble blocked access from Brazil. According to Gazeta do Povo, this was likely done in protest of the Brazilian government's order to remove exiled journalist Allan dos Santos's channel Terça Livre, which had been investigated by Congress for knowingly using fake news to target political opponents.[3]
In May 2024, Rumble was blocked in Russia for not complying with the Russian government's demand to remove content, which Chris Pavlovski deemed as censorship.[58]
^Howell, Tom (February 21, 2024). "SEC clears Rumble after reports of investigation". The Washington Times. the short-lived investigation was part of a coordinated ploy by short sellers manipulating the market.
