Rumble, a video-sharing service seen as a YouTube competitor, that bills itself as a platform allowing creators to host, manage, distribute, create over-the-top (OTT) feeds and monetize their content is co-owned by political commentator Dan Bongino.
Bongino, a radio host, has decided he has had enough of YouTube’s attitude toward conservative voices and instead of merely complaining about it, has now invested in a platform that should compete with the censorship-ridden YouTube.
Bongino says YouTube demonetizes 80 percent of daily episodes uploaded to his YouTube channel that has some 600,000 subscribers, because of the political nature of the content he produces.
“We need somewhere to go where conservative views won’t be discriminated against,” he said, explaining his decision to acquire an equity stake in Rumble.
Bongino doesn’t intend to leave his YouTube audience just yet, but his Dan Bongino Show – that ranked 12th on the Apple Podcast list of most popular podcasts last month – will now be appearing on Rumble first.
He criticized YouTube as “crushing” conservative points of view and proclaimed he was no longer prepared to “sit around and take their bullshit.”
If recent history is anything to go by, he means business: in 2019 he responded to The Drudge Report going liberal by coming up with The Bongino Report, while in June, his reaction to Twitter’s policies has been to partner with an alternative, Parler, that is promoted as a free speech social network.
At the time, he referred to Big Tech as “Tech Tyrants” that he intends to fight back.
The Rumble move certainly fits in with this, and according to its website, this platform founded in 2013 today has 50 million monthly uniques and hosts 150,000 creators.
In 2018, Rumble announced it would invest $20 million in its flagship product, the video creators’ network.
At the time, reports said that the company was encouraged by having its community more than double in a year, with content covering a wide range of topics, including news, and short viral videos.
The focus of the platform has been to allow creators, regardless of their current clout, better opportunities at monetizing their work.
