Since Russia invaded Ukraine, the Russian channels RT and Sputnik have been banned in Europe. However, the Canadian platform Rumble, popular with supporters of the extreme right, continues to present content from the two antennas, recognized by Europe as propaganda outlets for Moscow.
Faced with a request from the French government to remove these streams from its platform -as it obtained from another platform, Odysee-, Rumble simply chose to temporarily suspend its activity in France. The company has adopted an anti-censorship policy since its inception.
Questioning the legality of the French demands
In a statement posted on Twitter, Rumble explains that the French government’s request goes against its mission to “restore a free and open internet.” The company also indicates that France represents only one percent of its users.
The head of the company, Chris Pavlovsky, specifies that the French government’s requests refer to Russian sources of information.
The Regulatory Authority for Audiovisual and Digital Communications (Arcom) had confirmed, in a press release, after the adoption of European sanctions against Russia on March 1 that “these measures are intended, in particular, to suspend the broadcast by any means of the contents of RT and Sputnik. in all the countries of the European Union.
The platforms included in the European ban
The RT channels -in their five broadcast languages- as well as Sputnik can no longer be broadcast in any way in Europe. The text of the European Union regulation that mentions it explicitly specifies that this prohibition of retransmission or giving access to this content applies “even through transmission or distribution by any means such as […] platforms or applications, new or pre-existing, to share videos on the Internet”.
In December 2021, Rumble had entered a society with Donald Trump’s social network, Truth Social. The objective was to provide a technological means to distribute videos and streaming content. This collaboration did not prevent the new platform find technical problems when it was launched.
Among the content offered by the French Rumble videographers, there is a lot of conspiratorial or anti-Semitic content, it indicates The world.
Source: BFM TV
