Any article that simply reports on these vital developments with free speech and systemic censorship is, by itself, journalistically worthwhile, even necessary. With so many Western corporate journalists supportive of or (at best) indifferent to the grave dangers this system imposes, the truth behind this censorship regime — who is constructing it and for what purposes — is far too rarely revealed. Any news article reporting on the component parts of this escalating regime would be inherently valuable.
But when it comes to this sinister regime of information control, I long ago ceased believing it sufficient merely to report on it. I regard the need to fight against this regime of censorship, to destabilize and subvert it, and ultimately to defeat it as a paramount cause, the journalistic and political cause I prioritize above all others. Little is possible, including meaningful journalism, if we are prevented from being heard, if our discourse is strictly controlled and policed by the very power centers our rights allow and encourage us to challenge. Few other values can be defended, and few other injustices exposed and combated, if ruling class elites continue to acquire the defining tyrannical power of information control and silencing of dissent.
Action, not just words, is required. That is why I have been devoting myself to supporting only those sites and companies genuinely determined to resist pressures and other forms of coercion to censor on behalf of Western establishment institutions, and instead to preserve and fortify spaces for free speech and free inquiry online, with the ability to reach large numbers of people. It does nobody any good — other than one's adversaries — if one willingly ghettoizes oneself into fringe and marginalized precincts. What is required is a cause-driven commitment to free speech along with the strategic ability to attract large audiences — and that, to me, means doing my journalism only on platforms with a demonstrated commitment to these values and an demonstrated ability to reach large numbers of people.
For this reason, the platforms with which I have worked over the past two years are ones that have proven not just a willingness but an eagerness to express defiant contempt for these censorship pressures and an impressive commitment to ensuring free expression: Substack for written journalism, Callin for podcasts, and Rumble for video journalism. Each has been the target of pressure campaigns of the type that caused the Cloudflare CEO so pathetically to reverse his own refusal to obey censorship orders after less than a day. Each of these platforms has refused to accede to these demands in the way that Cloudflare and so many others before it have done. That is precisely what is needed to subvert the growing censorship regime: people and companies that simply refuse to obey.
Rumble in particular has been the target of intense attacks — in part because it agreed to allow RT to broadcast on its platform in order to protest the EU's outlawing of that network and thus incurred the wrath of the Russia-obsessed corporate media, but also because it has experienced massive growth largely as the result of growing anger toward Big Tech censorship. Rumble has begun attracting not only political commentators
banished in unison by Big Tech — such as the recent banning Andrew Tate, who
promptly moved his large audience to Rumble — but also cultural commentators and Gen Z personalities increasingly angry at the repressive climate imposed by Google on its YouTube platform. This is driving more and more growth to the platform, which in turn is causing establishment media corporations to devote more and more energy to disparaging it.
Crickey, Aug. 29, 2022
Rumble's lawsuit against Google for antitrust violations — alleging that Google is using its market dominance of search engines to hide Rumble videos in order to protect Google's YouTube — created a significant win for Rumble, as
we reported here in August, as the judge refused Google's request to dismiss the lawsuit. That ruling allows Rumble to obtain invasive discovery about how Google manipulates its search engine algorithms, and for whose benefit.
As a result of what appeared to be the genuine commitment of Rumble's founders to the cause of free speech and anti-censorship efforts, I was part of a group last year — that included former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard and frequent Joe Rogan guest Bridget Phetasy — which
agreed to create video journalism exclusively for that platform. Our show, called System Update,
was a great success, surpassing all of my expectations. Several of our video broadcasts — with little promotional budget or regularly scheduled programming — exceeded 750,000 viewers, while our shows routinely exceeded 200,000 views. Pursuant to our agreement, we uploaded each video to YouTube several hours after they debuted on Rumble, and with the exception of one or two videos, the Rumble videos performed significantly better.
(Notably,
The Washington Post article announcing our move attempted to disparage Rumble as a toxic sewer of disinformation. To do so, it cited one of those benign-sounding groups — what
The Post heralded as “the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a counter-extremism think tank in London” — to call Rumble “one of the main platforms for conspiracy communities and far-right communities in the U.S. and around the world.” As I
documented in a detailed video report on Rumble, that “Institute” cited by
the Post as its disinformation expert is one funded by and serves as a partner to the U.S. and UK Security states as well as Big Tech itself. In other words,
the Post unwittingly illustrated how this sham "disinformation” industry is weaponized by institutions of establishment power to deceive the public into believing that their decrees are apolitical proclamations based in science rather than what they are: extremely politicized schemes on behalf of Western power centers designed to make crude censorship appear enlightened and scientific.)
This stunning success over the past year — with audience sizes that would make many cable programs envious — has led us and Rumble to now enter into a far more sweeping, ambitious and exciting commitment. As part of a new live network of news shows that Rumble will host on its platform, we will be very imminently launching a new and radically expanded version of “System Update.” Our broadcast now will be a one-hour, nightly news and commentary show that will air live, exclusively on Rumble's platform, from Monday to Friday at 7:00 pm ET. At the end of each program on Rumble, I will move to my
dedicated community page on Locals — the platform recently purchased by Rumble that is designed to build communities of content and commentary (more about that later) — where I will continue the live broadcast for subscribers only, for roughly 20-30 minutes, by answering questions about the show, engaging critiques and suggestions, and otherwise directly interacting with our audience.
Anyone who is a paid subscriber here on Substack will have the automatic right to also become a subscriber to our Locals community, free of cost or charge. In other words, if you already purchased a yearly subscription here at Substack, you will continue to have full access to all of my written journalism here, and will also have full access to everything we do at Locals, including the after-show that is exclusively for audience interaction with our subscribers. However much time you have left on your Substack subscription — for instance, those who purchased a one-year Substack subscription in June and thus have eight months remaining on their Substack subscription — will automatically receive eight months of free subscription to our Locals community. Anyone here who purchases their Substack subscription on a monthly basis will be able to do the same on Locals.
The new network of live one-hour shows on Rumble already launched when Russell Brand
debuted his new live show, "Stay Free,” on Rumble on September 28. Many of his shows, after less than a month, are already attracting an audience size of 250,000 views or more (I was one of the guests
on his debut show, starting at 41:00, where we discussed the purpose and goal of these new shows). Rumble will shortly be unveiling other hosts who have similarly heterodox and independent views. On September 8,
The Wall Street Journal broke the story of the new network of shows Rumble is committing to, and it includes many details about our new upcoming program.
Our new live program was originally scheduled to launch on September 10, but was delayed due to the ongoing health crisis in my family which I
have discussed several times here. That health crisis has unfortunately not yet resolved itself, and that makes it quite difficult for me to commit to a concrete launch date for the show because, to be honest, there are days when I am simply not equipped to work, and I do not want to launch the show until I am confident I can produce five nights of high-quality live programming.
We are, however, extremely excited by the new show. Rumble — knowing that we need to produce very high-quality shows if we want people to turn off CNN and other corporate television networks and watch our shows instead — has provided very sizable production budgets. That has allowed us to build a new state-of-the-art studio where our show will be hosted, and to hire a large studio team to produce the show with the same technical quality that one would expect to find on any other prime-time television show.
Until we can commit to a definitive launch date — meaning when our family is whole again and I am not spending significant parts of my days speaking with teams of doctors and ICU nurses — we are instead going to produce a “soft launch” of the show. To do that, we will very shortly — within the next couple of weeks — begin broadcasting our live show not yet on Rumble but on our Locals page. In other words, for the first couple of weeks, as we work out the kinks in the show and do the kind of test run we would do in any event, we will produce our show for the first couple of weeks exclusively for our Substack and Locals subscriber base. That will enable you to be part of the process as we develop the show, to provide feedback on how to make it better, and to begin watching what we believe and expect from the start will be very high-quality news, reporting and commentary. I would not put anything on the air, even as part of a “soft launch,” that I did not have pride and belief in.
In so many ways, this show is a new and significant challenge for me. We have committed to producing a one-hour live program
five nights a week. The show will begin with an in-depth monologue (up to twenty minutes) that is similar in kind to the evidence-heavy presentations we have been producing as part of our periodic System Update programs on Rumble now. The second segment will entail an in-depth interview of roughly twelve to fifteen minutes with a political official, a journalist, or someone who otherwise has something original and informative to say. The third segment will be devoted to covering the top two or three new stories of the day — including with live on-the-scene reporters — but we will cover these stories in a much different way, with a different voice and perspective, than what you would expect to see by turning on your television to watch corporate news. And the last part of the show will consist of a regular, rotating series of topics and segments as we transition into the live, audience-participation after-show on Locals.
Written journalism has always been the foundation of how I participate in our discourse and that will continue. But this new live program will enable me to reach entirely new audiences (many people now, especially but not only younger people, will only consume news through video), and to do reporting and construct analyses using the most potent technological tools. I am convinced it will do nothing but expand the reach and impact of the journalism I already do here.
While the show will be part of a new network of shows hosted on Rumble's platform, it is
not a Rumble show. By that, I mean that — unlike other programs that appear on television — we will not exist within or report to any corporate management or corporate structure. Rumble has no interest in producing news and political programming, only in providing an ideologically-neutral and content-neutral free speech platform that enables everyone to speak and be heard freely. Rumble thus does not have any editorial managers or any other executives who can be or want to be in a position of overseeing anyone's content. Our contract provides that we have full, complete and unlimited editorial freedom and journalistic independence; Rumble has no desire and no ability to review any of our shows; and our contract is guaranteed and cannot be terminated due to the disagreement with or objections to any of our viewpoints, content or reporting.
Ultimately, no contract in the world can really guarantee one's editorial freedom (as I learned when
The Intercept brazenly violated the contractual right I enjoyed since I co-founded the site in 2013 to publish my reporting directly to the internet without any editorial interference or control, editorial censorship which
led me to quit and come to Substack almost two yeas ago to this day [see this thread - OB]). These kinds of relationships require trust, and I have absolute trust in the commitment of the founders and managers of Rumble to devote the site to values of free speech. Even if they were not genuinely committed to these values as a cause — and they are — they know that Rumble's self-interest requires the fulfillment of its commitments to free speech since the reason for Rumble's success is precisely that it is becoming
the free speech alternative to Google's YouTube.
Once we have our date for the soft-launch of our show on Locals, we will notify all subscribers here. All one needs to access our Locals community — and thus have exclusive viewing rights to the first couple of weeks for our debut as well as the right to watch and participate in the after-show on Locals — is a current Substack subscription. Those of you who are already paid subscribers here will not need to do anything other than opt-in to your new free Locals subscription when we send that email announcing our launch date. But the show itself — once it debuts in its nightly form on Rumble — will be freely available to the public at large: no subscription required. Our primary goal — after producing high-quality journalism and broadcast programming — is to reach as large an audience as possible. We do not want to be paywalled and thus reduce the reach of our work.
Complaining about, denouncing and even protesting the escalating censorship regime in the West will not stop it or even impede its growth. What will do so is the creation and growth of platforms that are committed to free speech and which are fully fortified in all ways — ideologically, politically and technologically — to resist encroachments into our most basic right: the right to freely express ourselves, to freely communicate with one another, and to freely challenge, question and dissent from the policy agendas, dictates and decrees of institutions of authority. Free speech platforms like Rumble, and our new live nightly "System Update” program on it are, above all else, dedicated to advancing this central cause.
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