The founder and CEO of Rumble — a YouTube alternative billing itself as “immune to cancel culture” — said he has “departed” from Europe after Pavel Durov, the CEO of encrypted messaging app Telegram, was arrested.
“I’ve just safely departed from Europe,” Chris Pavlovski, a Canadian national, posted on X on Sunday, Aug. 25.
He claimed France had “threatened Rumble” and had “crossed a red line” by arresting Telegram’s Durov. In November 2022, Rumble blocked access to French users, claiming the country’s government asked it to remove “certain Russian news sources,” which it said it would legally challenge.
In May, Pavlovski also claimed Russia blocked Rumble because it “refused to comply with their censorship demands.”
With the proliferation of actual illegal material on Telegram I can at least understand Durov being arrested, even if I’m undecided on whether I agree with it. But why in the heck would they reasonably go after Rumble? It’s just American conservative YouTube. I haven’t heard of any actual illegal/illicit material (political opinion pieces don’t count, that is in fact free speech) at all connected to Rumble, or at least no worse in proportion to YouTube or Twitch.
EDIT: And as far as I’m aware, Rumble does have moderation, it’s just not as strict as YouTube’s at least when it comes to expression of opinion. I wouldn’t doubt they have a policy in place for that kind of illegal/illicit material to at least be taken down. Perhaps France was threatening them because they wouldn’t cooperate by handing over user data after that? /shrug
Signal???
My mistake, I meant Telegram. I get the two confused.