After discussing with people in touch with Rumble, I have learned that the initial Fuentes Rally stream on Sunday was removed by Rumble. My team and I were not aware of this as we were not notified by email of the removal and my account was in good standing showing no policy violations as of this evening. Moreover, Rumble never told us which policy we violated.
Tonight we re-aired the Fuentes Rally stream without knowing that it had been manually removed by Rumble earlier in the week and without being told why it was removed. Rumble swiftly removed the Fuentes Rally stream again tonight, once again without an explanation.
Later in the evening it was communicated to us indirectly, through intermediate parties that Rumble censored the stream over a remark I made in the stream about declaring a "Holy War," which they consider incitement to violence.
You can watch the speech on
Cozy.tv/aff and judge for yourself as to whether or not you think this could reasonably be considered incitement.
Within the context of the speech, it is completely unambiguous that any reference to a Holy War was meant metaphorically in reference to spiritual life and politics. I laid out precisely our political goals which are to control immigration and appoint Christian leadership.
In the call to action I gave several concrete directive including: to pray every day, attend mass weekly, to use discretion when discussing sensitive political topics, and to begin entering politics.
I obviously do not condone or promote violence of any kind, against anyone, and this was abundantly clear in the speech. Again, people can decide for themselves if the stream was censored for a legitimate infraction or because of pressure from Media Matters and Elon Musk, both of whom have called for the speech to be censored.
Rumble has now restricted my channel from streaming for two weeks.
I have no problem playing by the rules. If Rumble considered those remarks to be in violation of their guidelines then I will make sure nothing similar is published on my Rumble channel in the future. I appreciate that Rumble has made a real commitment to protecting free speech and I would like to reciprocate by being cooperative.
With that being said, these opaque decisions and processes surrounding the censorship of this stream would feel familiar to anyone who has already been censored on Youtube or Twitch. This is always how it starts. Rumble has rules, I respect them. And when Rumble enforces its rules I recognize their discretion and authority to do so.
I do not like that my stream was removed without a notification and without a reason given— that is the problem. It makes it difficult for me to play by the rules. I am the most controversial streamer on Rumble. Here was a hiccup, it was a stress test. How this was handled does not make me very optimistic but I hope I am wrong.
All of my streamer friends on Rumble were clearly nervous about what happened tonight, there is a slight chilling effect. It is important that we continue to be vigilant and hold Rumble to their commitment to free speech.
