Donald Trump visited Ohio on Saturday to hold his first rally after leaving the White House. Trump rants about Joe Biden, spreads his conspiracy theories about 2020 election, and if he wasn't there to see it fittingly, there is a dispute about how large the crowd was. Livestreaming was an option. The former president is still banned from YouTube and every other social-networking platform. However, his team created a verified Donald Trump account on Rumble on Saturday, which is a popular video platform used by right-wingers like Dinesh Dsouza and Dan Bongino.AdvertisementTrump is a long-standing critic of social media's censorship of conservatives. He has been looking for alternative social media outlets ever since last summer, when he was said to be in talks with Parler, a Twitter clone. However, the deal apparently never happened. He tried to post on a microblogging platform that was attached at his website earlier this year. However, it failed to gain any traction after a month. He seems to have found a home on Rumble for his video content. However, he has only posted footage from the Ohio rally so far. Trump has 348k subscribers to the site. This is far less than the 2.75m subscribers he currently has on his frozen YouTube channel.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementHowever, it turns out that not everyone is happy with Donald Trump signing up for a right-wing, freedom-of-expression social network: The other right-wing social media networks.AdvertisementJohn Matze, co-founder and ex-CEO of Parler, asked Rumble if he gave Trump equity to encourage him to create an account. He also accused Parler of being too dependent on Big Tech through its use of Google analytics and ads. Andrew Torba, the founder of Gab, a Twitter clone, charged Rumble with compromising free speech principles by adding an anti-semitism clause to its terms and service. Rumble changed its terms of service to prohibit hate speech on the day that President Trump joined them. Torba posted on Gab, "A ban on antisemitic messages" was added. This is also known as any criticism of Israel or Jewish people. Gabs terms of services do not ban anti-White hatred, but they do ban porn, doxing and other illegal content. According to snapshots taken by the Wayback Machine it appears that Rumble has added antisemitic content and messages to its terms of services on Thursday. Chris Pavlovski, Rumble CEO, told me back in March that the platform doesn't allow racism or antisemitism. So the update does not necessarily indicate a significant shift in the site's moderation policies. (Pavlovski didn't respond to my request for comment this week.AdvertisementIt might seem odd that Torba seems so obsessed with Rumbles rather standard rules regarding hate speech towards Jewish people, especially considering the widespread antisemitism in Gab. Infamously, the alleged gunman responsible for the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018 was known to have posted hateful content on Gab prior to the attack. Gab deleted the account only after the shooting. Mother Jones Ali Breland also reported that Torba has a history in courting antisemites to his site.AdvertisementAdvertisementIt appears that Torbas desire for social networks to allow antisemites is mixed with professional jealousy. Torba spoke out earlier this month with TruNews, claiming that Trump's son-in law Jared Kushner wanted Gab removed from the site. Torba said that Kushner called them Jew-haters and that he called them Jew criticizers. It's a free-speech platform. As long as you don't say anything illegal or threaten violence, you can speak your mind. Bloomberg and CNN reported that Kushner intervened to prevent Trump joining Parler and Gab. These reports did not mention Kushner's requirement that Trump set up an account on these platforms if he modifies antisemitic content.AdvertisementIn 2016, Torba founded Gab to address allegations that Facebook had restricted the visibility of right-wing politicians. Gab was created by Torba in 2016 to protest the censorship of conservatives as well as social justice bullying. Rumble however, fell into the right-wing alternative platform game. Chris Pavlovski, a Canadian tech entrepreneur, created the video site to offer small-time creators opportunities to monetize content that was difficult to do on YouTube. The site hosted mostly videos of adorable animals and children until 2020 when right-wingers started to flock to it to upload anti-vaccine content and conspiracy theories. Pavlovski, who may have spotted the opportunity to be more vocal in his accusations of Big Tech's censorship, actively pursues prominent conservatives and intellectual dark-web figures to join Rumble. Rumble could double down on this strategy: According to site metrics, Trump's livestream has nearly 1 million views.Future Tense is a collaboration between Slate, New America and Arizona State University. It examines emerging technologies and public policy.
