The formidable video-sharing platform and cloud services provider, Rumble, has brought a defamation case against Nandini Jammi and Claire Atkin, founders of Check My Ads. This organization, known for working to demonetize outlets by pressuring advertisers to stop running ads, stands accused of spreading false and damaging information about Rumble.
The claim has been issued in a federal court in Florida, additionally implicating as yet unidentified individuals, referenced as John Does 1 through 10, who allegedly assisted in distributing the alleged falsehoods about Rumble.
Distinguished United States defamation and First Amendment litigators, Clare Locke LLP, are championing Rumble’s case.
Rumble prides itself on being an unapologetic bastion of free speech, offering an open platform for content creators and users, irrespective of their political persuasion.
However, it often finds itself targeted by these anti-free speech campaigners through activism aimed at inflicting economic harm, as stated by Rumble Chairman and CEO Chris Pavlovski. “As an unapologetically free-speech platform, Rumble’s mission is to provide all content creators and users a place to speak, listen, and debate freely, regardless of their political perspective. When anti-free speech zealots, whose self-declared mission is to shut Rumble down, lie to inflict intentional economic harm on our company, we have no choice but to hold them accountable,” he said.
“Defamation is not free speech. We have filed this lawsuit because we have a responsibility to our shareholders, creators, users, and advertisers to act, and not sit idly by, when someone attacks our company’s reputation solely to silence differing political views. Our mission requires it.”
The named defendants, Nandini Jammi and Claire Atkin, known for pressurizing advertisers through tactics used previously against outlets like Fox News and Breitbart and associations with partisan organizations like Media Matters, are accused of disregarding Rumble’s unbiased philosophy and intending to suppress competition.
“Nandini Jammi and Claire Atkin, the co-founders of Check My Ads, together with Media Matters for America, purport to be digital advertising crusaders dedicated to fighting the ‘global disinformation epidemic,'” the lawsuit states. “Yet, for years, they have engaged in their own hypocritical disinformation campaign to censor, silence, and cancel speech by spreading false, materially misleading, and defamatory statements and engaging in tortious conduct to convince advertisers to withdraw ad spends from platforms like Rumble that host content creators who espouse views contrary to Defendants’ hyper-partisan sensibilities.”
According to the lawsuit, they falsely accused Rumble of misleading shareholders and the Securities and Exchange Commission concerning the company’s financial status and income sources.
Highlighting the nature of the accusations, the suit asserts, “Defendants have repeatedly peddled the false narrative that Rumble is primarily monetized by and wholly dependent upon revenue from Google Ads, when in reality, Google Ads now represents less than 1% of the Company’s revenue.” This false narrative causes severe harm to Rumble’s reputation, distorting their mission of independence from Big Tech’s political and economic influence, and wrongly suggesting a significant financial risk to the Company due to an overreliance on Google Ad revenue.
In the pursuit of restoring Rumble’s reputation, the lawsuit requests actual, presumed, and punitive damages, complete reimbursement of associated costs and fees, and asks the court to prohibit any repetition of these false statements.
There is an immense irony present, as alleged by CEO Chris Pavlovski, in that it is the defendants who claim to guard against disinformation who are disseminating the falsehoods. “The irony is that the defendants piously claim to be in the business of protecting all of us from disinformation, but they are the ones lying to the public,” he says, “This lawsuit opens up another front in the ongoing war against censorship, much like X’s recently filed suit against Media Matters—another entity that tries to shut down dissent online—and Truth Social’s lawsuit against 20 media outlets. For those of us who value free expression and the free exchange of ideas, it is important to stand up to bullies—and people who lie and use intimidation tactics are most assuredly bullies, just as they are enemies of free speech.”
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