Rumble might disable UK access rather than moderate misinformation and hate speech on the platform

Under a new online safety law, Rumble might disable access to its platform for users in the United Kingdom rather than moderate its rampant misinformation and hate speech. Media Matters has documented extensive white nationalist, antisemitic, and anti-LGBTQ bigotry on the platform, in addition to anti-vaccine misinformation and other dangerous conspiracy theories — including content that experts reportedly claim would need to be moderated under the new U.K. law.

Rumble is an extreme right-wing video-sharing platform that markets itself as a defender of “free speech” and embraces far-right figures who have been banned on mainstream platforms for misinformation and hate speech. For instance, white nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes, who has been banned on multiple platforms, has posted at least 720 videos on Rumble since March 2021, earning at least 5 million views on videos including “America First's Nick Fuentes DEMOLISHES experimental ‘vaccine,’” “The Purpose of JUNETEENTH Is WHITE REPLACEMENT,” and “Gays and Jews Are Problematic.”

On September 25, The Times reported that under the U.K. online safety bill set to become law next month, Rumble will have to take down “videos that incite violence or race hate” and prevent children from seeing “violent content and material harmful to health, such as vaccine misinformation,” or experts say the platform will be “forced out of the UK.”

Given Rumble’s history of deriding those concerned about user safety, the company may just disable access to the platform for U.K. users. In November 2022, Rumble claimed that the French government “demanded that we remove certain Russian news sources.” Instead, the platform “decided to disable access to Rumble for users in France.” After the chair of the British House of Commons media committee sent a letter to the platform last week expressing concerns about “Rumble Exclusive” creator Russell Brand’s ability to continue profiting from harmful content on the platform while he is under investigation for sexual assault, Rumble posted on X (formerly Twitter) and vowed not to “join a cancel culture mob.”

Rumble platforms a host of extreme and dangerous content that reports indicate would seemingly be prohibited in the U.K. under its new online safety bill:

• On Rumble, Fuentes posted a video fantasizing about teaming up with Adolf Hitler to kill a Black man in his neighborhood.
• Rumble profited from clips of an antisemitic rally where Fuentes called for a “holy war” against Jewish people. (The platform considered the rhetoric “incitement to violence.”)
• Fuentes posted content on Rumble attacking various civil rights movements, describing them as “the third world recolonization of America.”
• During a Rumble stream attacking Black people, Fuentes said that Arab, Muslim, and Black people are “incompatible” with the American system.
• After Jordan Neely, a Black homeless man, was killed on a New York City subway, Fuentes said on Rumble, “A lot of George Floyds and Neelys are going to die before we’re going to have a civilization that our kids are going to be safe to live in.”
• In clips posted to Rumble, Fuentes criticized other right-wing media