Rumble ready

Hey, it’s Daniel in London. A new video streaming site backed by Peter Thiel is unlike the others. But first...Today’s must-reads:• Remember [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( Hey, it’s Daniel in London. A new video streaming site backed by Peter Thiel is unlike the others. But first... Today’s must-reads: • Remember Amazon’s Astro robot? It’s going to be a [security guard]( • At Amazon’s device event Wednesday, the company revealed more [car and health gadgets]( • Sam Bankman-Fried is considering making a bid for the assets of [bankrupt crypto lender]( Celsius Network Where moderators fear to tread When Rumble, a video-sharing site that’s home to a range of controversial influencers, went public last week, investors had their first chance to bet on whether a site ostensibly dedicated to “free speech” will make it big. Rumble, founded in 2013 as a YouTube clone, is now listed on the NASDAQ after merging with a Cantor Fitzgerald-backed SPAC. Along with sites like Truth Social and Gettr, Rumble is a haven for the kind of content that mainstream social media services now prohibit. The site features personalities like Glenn Greenwald and [Russell Brand](, who as of Wednesday is livestreaming there [exclusively](. It also hosts Steve Bannon, Marjorie Taylor-Greene and Andrew Tate, the influencer who calls himself the “Top G,” and can function as a kind of conservative echo chamber where anti-vaxxers mingle with election deniers with relatively little fear of moderation, according to Kyle Walter, head of US investigations at the anti-disinformation firm Logically. “As a platform, Rumble has been instrumental in spreading conspiracies,” he said, adding that the “New World Order” and “Great Reset” theories are among the topics that have proliferated via videos on the site. By going public, Walter said, Rumble offers “a blueprint to follow to legitimacy, which does not require significant content moderation policies.” That might have been on Rumble Chief Executive Officer Chris Pavlovski’s mind when, in a video with Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick, he said “this has nothing to do with politics anymore.” Rumble’s shares [climbed]( after the company’s SPAC listing last week, though they recently gave up much of that rally. The site, which is backed by billionaire Peter Thiel, now has a market cap of more than $3 billion. The company’s CEO [also became a billionaire](. Activity on the site is perhaps best personified by Andrew Tate, the controversial influencer best known for disparaging comments about women and mental illness. Viral videos of Tate partying on a yacht in Croatia and hanging out with fans in Florence spread online over the summer, hinting at the level of adoration that many young men demonstrate for the former “Big Brother” contestant. Even before a 45% surge of daily active users coincided with Tate’s move to the platform at the end of August, the company was already diversifying into cloud services and a Patreon-like subscription service called Locals. Donald Trump’s own platform, Truth Social, [has deals]( with Rumble for video and advertising services.  Followers of the QAnon conspiracy movement regularly share links to videos on Rumble. Trump himself, having been exiled from YouTube since January 2021, broadcasts all his rallies on the site. In fact, over on Truth Social, the former president regularly shares links to all sorts of Rumble videos on his 4.1 million-follower-strong profile. The company told Bloomberg News via Twitter that it does enforce a number of restrictions. “Rumble has strict policies that ban the incitement of violence, illegal content, racism, antisemitism, promoting terrorist groups (as designated by U.S. and Canadian governments), and violating copyright,” it said. Asked how they would avoid the removals that have befallen other conservative platforms, Rumble said it’s migrating to its own cloud infrastructure, potentially allowing it to avoid the deplatforming that’s affected other conservative apps. Truth Social, for instance, enlisted RightForge, an internet hosting provider that [signaled it wouldn’t]( remove extremist rhetoric. Later, critics [said they caught Truth Social]( shadow banning posts that were critical of positions on some right-wing talking points. —[Daniel Zuidijk](mailto:dzuidijk@bloomberg.net) The big story Google has a plan to solve the opioid crisis. A rehab clinic in Ohio that was meant to highlight the company’s [futuristic approach to medicine]( has instead shown the value of old-school care. What else you need to know Amazon is asking more of its customer service workers to work from home as it [moves to shutter some call center offices](. Amazon’s next Kindle will [have a stylus](. California on Tuesday passed a law requiring all employers based or hiring in the state to [post salary ranges on all job listings](. MacKenzie Scott quietly removed the name of her [Seattle science teacher husband]( from her online philanthropic posts. 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