Russell Brand has moved his social commentary to Rumble after YouTube granted the comedian-turned-vlogger access to his content. “one lifetime warning” for posting misinformation about COVID-19 – despite that he self-corrected the mistake and apologized.
Brand uploaded a YouTube video in September highlighting the changing narratives surrounding COVID that were shared by legacy health officials and government health officials. Brand zoomed in to a screenshot taken by the National Institutes of Health. “Yesterday, the National Institution of Health added Ivermectin to its list of COVID treatments.”
Brand was incorrect. Brand misunderstood. “trialing”The legacy malaria treatment was approved by Brand, but he did not recommend it to anyone other than those who had completed the clinical trials. Brand’s followers were quick to point out the error, and he immediately took the video down and posted a mea culpa: “That was wrong,”He said. “We should have done better. We let you down. We will do better in the future.”
YouTube did not flag him. Brand stated that he was notified by YouTube that he had violated the terms. “community guidelines”Concerning COVID misinformation and that the notice would remain as his one “lifetime” warning.
With YouTube’s one-strike policy – and Brand’s tendency to send monologues running down third rails – the “Get Him to the Greek”Star quickly migrated his 1,400+ videos to Rumble in order to keep them from being lost forever. Brand says going forward, his videos will appear on Rumble first, but he’ll continue uploading videos to YouTube “as long as they’ll allow us.”
Brand also announced that starting immediately, he’ll be hosting a one-hour livestream at 5 p.m. that’s exclusive to the conservative platform. Brand’s YouTube channel stands with 5.98 million subscribers, while the Rumble channel so far had picked up more than 600,000 (and was growing Wednesday at a rate of about 3,000 per hour).
Brand joined YouTube in 2007 and has accumulated more than 800,000,000 views for his short, topical rant edits. He often touches on politics and policy. His entire library appears to have made it over to Rumble. Rumble has 1,400 videos. He didn’t say whether he was moving with some content-creator deal with Rumble. Neither actor nor company responded immediately to requests for comment Wednesday.
The Peter Thiel-backed Rumble has become a safe haven for conservative and other alternative viewpoints on topics – like COVID, election integrity and the war in Ukraine – that have become targets of censorship by YouTube, Twitter and other social giants. It’s also attracted the likes of Infowars founder and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and QAnon influencers.
Brand, a spiritualist, recovering addict, is well-known for his advocacy for progressive causes, such as marriage equality, criminal justice reforms and criminal justice reforms. He repeatedly declares that he does not have any political loyalty and considers himself a truth-seeker. Brand is not afraid to ask questions that aren’t being answered by mainstream media.
“I support and love all of you. If you love Donald Trump, I love you. If you love Joe Biden, I love you,”In his announcement video, he stated this. “I want us to create new systems together and I don’t believe these institutionalized systems in the financial, government or media worlds are ever going to serve ordinary people. I believe we’re at a point of crisis, and things need to radically change, fast. And I believe we’ll be able to communicate our message more freely on Rumble.”
Brand did take the opportunity to highlight what he says is a double-standard in YouTube’s community guidelines, surfacing an old clip of Rachel Maddow saying on MSNBC that the COVID-19 vaccines end the possibility of infection and therefore stop the spread. “The virus stops with every vaccination,”Maddow says.
“I think most of us know now that that’s not true, but that video is up on YouTube right now … in my opinion, that’s misinformation,”He said. “Is there one standard for independent channels … and another for the mainstream media? Is it possible that YouTube is being colonized?”
Rumble claims it can do this “not stifle, censor, or punish creativity and freedom of expression,”It went public quietly last week, and its stock shot up by 40%. However, some of those gains have since been recouped. With sites like Gettr, Gab, Parler and Donald Trump’s Truth Social sputtering, it’s the sole success story of a platform launch spurred by Big Tech’s censorship spree.
“We know that Rumble has a reputation in some quarters for having some particular biases — biases that we are beyond,”Brand stated. “I am interested in total transparent communication, empowerment of the audience, symbiotic two-way conversations and attacking elite establishments whether its corporate or state … that is why it’s so convenient that this has happened at this time.”
