YouTube rival Rumble strikes deals with Tulsi Gabbard, Glenn Greenwald

Video platform Rumble, which has grown in popularity among conservatives as an alternative to YouTube, has reached agreements with eight “thought leaders” to provide content, including former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) and journalist Glenn Greenwald.

“These prominent new voices add to Rumble’s deep pool of content talent and further enhance the platform’s breadth and depth of offerings to our viewers,” the company said in a blog post Thursday.

The platform said it had also reached agreements with comedian Bridget Phetasy, satirist Matt Orfalea, former Washington Examiner writer Siraj Hashmi, Twitter personality Mujahed Kobbe, writer Shant Mesrobian and journalist Zaid Jilani for original content.

“Although very diverse, this group of individuals does share one characteristic: a commitment to challenge the status quo, seek the truth, and share it,” Rumble added.

Rumble has exploded in popularity in the last year, becoming a haven for conservative voices that frequently violated content moderation policies of more mainstream platforms.

As part of the agreement, the creators will get new resources from Rumble to produce videos that will be available exclusively on the platform for some period of time.

The platform, and others like it such as Parler and MeWe, have grown amid unsubstantiated criticism from conservatives that major social media platforms are biased against them.

Gabbard, for her part, blasted “Big Tech monopolies” in an inaugural video for Rumble, accusing major platforms of working to “censor those whose speech they deem unacceptable.”

Both Gabbard and Greenwald have more than 1 million followers on Twitter. Gabbard also has more than half a million followers on Facebook, while Greenwald has nearly a quarter of a million followers there.

While Rumble does have rules around racism and hate speech — although enforcement remains an open question — it is much more lenient with other types of content, including health misinformation.

A cursory search of “vaccine” on Rumble brings up videos including “The Vaccine Causes The Virus To Be More Dangerous,” with nearly 2 million views, and “MASSIVE: WORLD RENOWNED DOCTOR BLOWS LID OFF OF COVID VACCINE,” at almost 1.5 million views.

Online misinformation has been identified as a major driver of vaccine hesitancy by the White House and researchers.