Rumble

Rumble was founded in 2013 by Chris Pavlovski as an alternative to YouTube for independent content creators. Pavloski founded the platform after seeing that Google was prioritizing influencers on YouTube and not small content creators. In its early years, content on Rumble largely consisted of viral videos and news from mainstream media sources as well as videos of children and animals. The platform received a large influx of viewership beginning during the COVID-19 pandemic, with monthly visitors rising from 1.6 million in 2020 to 31.9 million by 2021. In the first nine months of 2021, Rumble generated more than $6.5 million in revenue, mostly from advertisements, but was not profitable.Rise of viewership in 2020 has been attributed to Representative Devin Nunes who accused YouTube of overly censoring his channel. Nunes began posting content on the platform with other prominent conservatives, such as Dinesh D'Souza, Dan Bongino, Sean Hannity, and Representative Jim Jordan, following soon after. On January 11, 2021, Rumble filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google over its search results, seeking damages exceeding $2 billion. Rumble alleged that Google manipulates its algorithm so as to favor Google's YouTube over Rumble in Google search results. It also alleges that this reduces its viewership and results in lower advertising revenues. As of August 2022, the case was ongoing.Rumble received investment from venture capitalists Peter Thiel and J. D. Vance in May 2021, with that round of funding valuing Rumble at around $500 million. A month later, US President Donald Trump joined Rumble in preparation for recording his Ohio campaign rally. In October 2021, Rumble acquired Locals. On December 14, 2021, Trump Media & Technology Group announced that it entered a "wide-ranging technology and cloud services agreement" with Rumble in a statement which also stated that Rumble would operate part of Truth Social as well as TMTG.In August 2022, Rumble announced plans to provide an online advertising platform known as Rumble Ads, with Truth Social as its first publisher. Rumble became a publicly traded company in September 2022, trading on NASDAQ, after merging with a special-purpose acquisition company.