Rumble Says 'Non!' To French Government Censors, Pulls Out Of Country
Faced with French Government demands that free-speech video platform Rumble censor Russian news channels, the company's CEO simply said "no." No more Rumble for France. It's a brave example of how to resist "cancel culture." Also today: US weapons to Ukraine continue to end up in the hands of criminals. And: Anti-sanction parties surge in Germany and Austria - is the backlash gathering steam?
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Hello everybody and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With us today is Daniel McAdams, our co-host.
Daniel, good to see you today.
Good morning, Dr. Paul.
How are you this morning?
Doing well.
Doing well.
So I want to start off today about a little bit of good news.
Yes, you know, talking about our new friends that we've been working with and we're pretty pleased with it with Rumble.
But I guess it's the French government, was it?
French government said, hey, no, you mentioned Russia in there and you didn't say, you know, we had to bomb Russia or something like that.
So they were demanding that the Rumble people, you know, do what they said.
So it was back to where this whole thing started a long time ago.
Who sets the standards?
And, you know, this originally seems like it's a mixed bag, but it really isn't.
It's stand up because Rumble closed down.
And I said, well, first off, well, they're doing exactly what the French government means.
But this is a lot different than getting closed down because you're not doing some bad things.
And this makes the point that Rumble is not going to put up with a lot of nonsense and be demanded that you do this and this.
And there was no reason for them to cancel information about Russia.
So that I think is very good.
And maybe this is a movement because since we've been working with Rumble, what, a couple months now?
Yeah.
And we've been really happy about it.
And when they do this, we know they're not bluffing, that they're serious about it.
And we should encourage them and thank them for standing up for the right side of the First Amendment.
Yeah, it is a good news story.
And it just shows, I mean, the reason we chose to lead with it is because it shows that you can stand up, and sometimes you will take a hit on these things.
Let's put up the first clip if we can.
This is from the Daily Wire.
Anti-woke YouTube competitor Rumble tells France, au revoir, over censorship demands.
This came out today, and we can put on that next clip, because this is what happens.
U.S. and Canada-based video platform Rumble is shutting down in France after refusing the European nation's demand that it block pro-Russian news sources, according to its CEO.
So essentially, France said, you have to not allow alternative viewpoints on your platform, to which Rumble said, no, we're not going to do it.
And this is, here's a tweet, and I don't have it up, but here's a tweet from Rumble itself.
Recently, the French government demanded that we remove certain Russian news sources from Rumble.
As part of our mission to restore a free and open internet, we have committed not to move the goalposts on our content policies.
Users with unpopular views are free to access our platform on the same terms as our millions of other users.
Accordingly, we have decided to disable access to Rumble for users in France while we challenge the legality of the government's demands.
This decision will not have any material effect on our business as France represents less than 1% of our users.
The French people, however, and this is the important part, I think, Dr. Paul, the French people will lose access to a wide range of Rumble content because of these government demands.
We hope the French government reconsiders its decision so we can restore access soon.
And this turns everything on its head because it's the West that's censoring, it's the West that's demanding that you don't listen to anything but government sources for information.
Wasn't that a complaint about the Soviet Union for all those years?
To me, the most important thing here is that early on, there was a lot of confusion because there is a tendency to protect private property.
So if you have a platform and you're a private company and they can cancel you and tell what has to be on, you can't leave, put on pornography and violence and this sort of thing.
But we were arguing all along that that isn't the case.
They're not independent anyway.
It's a partnership.
The extension, social media is just an extension of the government.
So government censorship.
So this calls them out on it because this has nothing to do with freedom of speech.
This tells who controls the news cycle.
And it's been bad.
But I think because of the confusion, that it's gotten further along than it should have, but because people were intimidated because this was a freedom of speech issue, where it isn't a freedom of speech issue.
It's who controls the propaganda and the pseudo-connection of a private company along with the government.
It's not what they say it is because the government is the sensor, really the censor.
They want to dictate the policy, you know, and therefore the social media outlet becomes their agent for it.
And they deal with the violations of freedom of speech.
And contrast this behavior with how it has been for the last several years with Twitter and Facebook and the other social media.
Every time the U.S. Congress calls and says jump, they say how high.
And they come down there and say, oh, please, Mr. Representative, what do you want us to do?
How much should we censor today?
Well, this just shows that you can succeed as a company and say no to government censorship, say no to government, and that we're not going to go along with what you say.
And it's really encouraging that this happens.
Well, here's a couple of tweets.
The first one is from the CEO of Rumble, Chris Pavlovsky, and he makes a good point.
He said the French government demanded that Rumble block Russian news sources.
Like Elon Musk, I won't move our goalposts for any foreign government.
Rumble will turn off France entirely, et cetera, et cetera, and challenge.
And he retweets an Elon Musk tweet from March 4th.
Elon Musk, now the owner of Twitter, Musk said back in March 4th that Starlink, which is their satellite which provides internet for Ukraine, Starlink has been told by some governments to block Russian news sources.
We will not do so unless at gunpoint.
Sorry to be a free speech absolutist.
And thankfully, if you go to the next one, Glenn Greenwald, a progressive friend, he retweets Pavlovsky and says, if Rumble obeyed France's censorship order, like big tech firms often do, it'd mean Americans could only access voices and views which foreign governments, EU, China, Iran, etc., permitted to be aired.
Thankfully, Rumble told France to go blank itself.
And I did blank out that word on my own because this is a family program.
But Glenn makes a good point, and I think he's also relieved that finally, for once, a tech company stands up to a government and says no.
You know, what is being described here are the battle lines.
They're lining up because the EU came back rather strongly, and they seemed to pour cold water on the notion in Europe the bird will fly by our rules.
The EU is very, very threatening and said, we'll take care of that, and we are powerful.
And so we know exactly where, I think there's a better understanding of what's been going on with this case going on right now.
And if the people know the information, I think the support is sort of like, you know, the lockdown and things like that.
The more people understood and the more information they got, of course, there was control of information in that incident too.
Oh, you were only allowed to be, you only hear one side of the story.
You're not allowed to listen to this.
scientific stuff.
We don't want any scientific government.
You know, we don't want to hear anything about history.
We don't want to hear anything about science.
We have to take care of the people.
A little lie here and there.
It doesn't matter.
Yeah.
People First00:11:01
And I think people are just going to start getting more used to Rumble.
They like the idea of a free speech.
People like us, they like the idea of it.
And it is hard to make a transition.
I'm a creature of habit.
I was so used to going to YouTube all the time.
And now it's not hard.
Once you make the transition, then it becomes more natural.
In fact, a friend of ours, I won't say his name, but he said the other day, well, I should watch a show on Rumble, but I'm just so used to the other channel, which I won't name.
But I'm getting there.
And so I think people will get used to it.
Well, let's move on because this is kind of a follow-up to something we mentioned yesterday.
And this has to do with the tons and tons and tons of weapons that the U.S. and its allies in NATO and elsewhere are pumping into Ukraine without any oversight.
This is a Finnish newspaper.
If we can put up the next clip, and this is thanks to our friends at antiwar.com.
This is a link that they provided in their piece.
The NBI, which is the National Bureau of Investigation in Finland, NBI suspects arms sent to Ukraine might be in criminal hands.
Do the next clip from this article.
And this is Christer Ahlgren, who is the detective superintendent of the Finnish Investigative Service.
Weapons shipped by various countries to Ukraine have been found in Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands.
He goes on to talk about Europol has anticipated criminal gangs stashing weapons in border areas.
The article goes on to talk about how motorcycle gangs are operating throughout Ukraine and grabbing weapons.
And we're not talking about grabbing a pea shooter, you know, grabbing a 38 special.
We're talking about military-grade weapons that are going to be just simply awash throughout Europe, throughout the Middle East, maybe in the U.S.
And they're starting to recognize, you know what, guys, this might be a problem down the road.
Oh, you think?
And the one report said that they have found that these weapons have gotten into Sweden.
Denmark, it looks like Scandinavia is in the dangerous area.
Netherlands, they all have these weapons.
But one report that sort of got my attention was it was the motorcycle gang.
And there probably were a couple.
They might be the intermediary.
They might be the drug dealers.
But they're doing this.
And they say that the motorcycle gang.
And I got to thinking, that's just sort of a takeaway to change it.
But aren't you known the criminal gangs in government too?
It's easy for a lot of us to think the real criminals, the big-time criminals, have control of the government.
One step removed, of course.
But there's a criminal element in government.
Well, philosophically, we see the whole thing as criminals because, you know, the Basia principle is that government should never be able to do anything that you and I can't do.
If we can't steal from our neighbor, why should we just get a good lobbyist to steal for us?
You know, that's 100% of what goes on in the country.
You know, they're a bunch of thieves and they get sanctions.
And the people who think they're going to get some benefit on the short run, they go along with it.
And they tolerate it until they run out of money.
Then they get scared and that's what's happening.
Well, I hope this doesn't happen, but we have to understand the situation, especially in Europe, especially in, as you say, in Scandinavia and most countries of Europe, except Hungary.
You've had years of open and unfettered immigration from places in the Middle East where there's a lot of conflict.
You've had people that have come in and settled that have not been properly vetted for extremist ties and sympathies.
You've had a lot of attacks in the area from people who it turns out had extremist sympathies.
So now you take that very volatile mix, a bunch of people you don't know how violent they are, and then you ship in or you allow to come in all manner of military-grade weapons.
We could see for years and decades real, real unrest in these countries that have not had to deal with this kind of violence.
Morally, we have to assume responsibility for so much of this because the weapons are coming from us.
The profiteering is the arms manufacturers that we have in this country.
And that to me is a strong motivation.
And as long as we're the supplier, you say, well, maybe this is like Nancy Pelosi would argue when she gets off bounds.
Oh, well, yeah, this is true, but that's the way the market works.
You have inside information.
That's the true free market.
Somebody might just say, oh, they're an arms manufacturer and they're selling hunting rifles and they're a lot of sell them to some other country.
But that's where the real farce comes in because these are big-time weapons.
What is it, 30% might get to the Ukrainians to do something that we don't even endorse.
And it's taking resources from the people who are getting poorer and poorer in this country, building up more and more of our inflation.
And they think that this is endless, but it isn't endless.
And that's why there's people, you know, you notice each one of these countries had to complain about immigrants and inflation and the economy.
That's a big issue.
What's the big issues today in this country?
So the world's going bankrupt, both in a moral and a financial sense, because we just can't do it.
And it's all been, and I personally believe it's all because of the big lie about what money is all about.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Well, the last thing we're going to cover today, and let's put it up next, and this is kind of related to this one, because I think perhaps this is a bit of a good news story.
You always like to say that the people are waking up, and I think that is true, and I hope it is true.
But here are some suggestions, some concrete suggestions that the people are waking up.
And our caveat is we are not experts in European political parties, and we're not endorsing any European political party.
However, we are noticing, we've seen a lot of demonstrations in Europe and we've commented on them on this program.
Now we're seeing a movement in the polls in both Austria and Germany of parties that are explicitly opposed to sanctions, opposed to moving us toward war with Russia.
They have grown.
And this headline is, Austria's anti-immigration, anti-sanctions freedom party is now tied for first place in the polls.
And I think we have another clip on that.
No, we don't actually leave that one up.
So the Austrian Freedom Party moving up in the polls, passing the left, which are the most aggressive parties really, passing the center-right.
And now I think it is an example of how people are saying, we need an alternative.
This is not working.
You know, they talk, the Europeans, they list immigration as a problem, and of course inflation.
But they also say that they're sick and tired of the sanctions.
You know, sanctioning Russia is not doing, it's doing more harm to Europeans than to the Russians.
But I think you could say there's a lot of pain and suffering for American citizens because we do all those sanctions, but things backfire there.
But if you take the sanctions that we put on and disrupt the markets, what about the policy itself?
The Biden policies, even that adds to the problems of malinvestment and inflation because they just can't produce and closing down pipelines and all.
It's all manufactured.
So much of this is preventable.
And that is what is so discouraging.
It is preventable.
And that's why, you know, how do you change it?
One person at a time.
We got to change it.
And that's why our educational activities have very frequently tried to appeal to the young people.
And fortunately, the young people we've had at our conferences and we've gone to, they're a little bit more open-minded than the people who said, yeah, you guys are right, but we just can't rock the boat.
And we have our lobbyists to pay.
They can get more for us than you guys.
You guys might take a decade, you know, to get your freedom to work.
But eventually, though, they have to be more tolerant because the system that's going on right now is destined to fail.
And that's what the world's so shaken up about right now is the apparent failure of the global system.
And that's what they've been working on.
But, you know, the Marxists just said it's the wrong global system.
And that's why we want to disrupt everything.
We want to restart.
We want a real Marxist system.
Yes, the last one failed.
The Russians didn't come through and this sort of thing.
So now we want a real global system.
Where is the leadership out of the university system of this country is where I think it came from.
Well, the thing about Austria and Germany is at least there are alternative parties with different platforms.
You think about the UK, there is real need, no opposition party.
And even in the U.S., yeah, we have the Libertarian Party, and they're making some headway.
But as far as getting traction, it's not to blame them because the odds are so stacked against them that it's really tough to win in the race because the two other parties collude.
Let's put on this next clip because the same thing from Austria is also true in Germany.
Far-right party makes comeback in German regional poll.
Now, of course, far-right means anything to the right of Trotsky or something.
So for these, but this is the Alternative for Germany party, which is also opposed to sanctions, opposed to moving toward war with Russia.
And they are also making a lot of headway in the polls.
But of course, in Germany, when you start getting ahead with a different platform, what happens?
Let's put on the next clip because Germany, anti-democratic leftists, demand an AFD ban.
They want to ban the Alternative for Germany party because they just happen to be moving ahead in the polls.
Well, eventually the ideas win out, but they have to be proposed, and the people will respond.
But the big challenge for most people is, you know, they can't quite, they're not patient enough to realize that you have to change people's mind.
You might have to change a generation of people.
You know, in studying the founding of this country, it wasn't like on 1776, all of a sudden a dozen people got together.
Oh, we have a new idea.
We're going to pop this up.
When you look at that, I mean, there were a lot of years of study and understanding about history and philosophy and religion that led up to what happened in 1776.
And they described it so well.
But I guess we have to deal with what we have.
Changing Minds Takes Time00:04:23
And I still think that we have a much better chance if we change people's minds in a peaceful manner rather than thinking that sanctions will do it.
We'll put more sanctions on it.
Oh, we'll backfire like it is.
Then when you look at the economic statistics, like 1% of our population has so much money.
Libertarians aren't against making money.
But it's a crime to see such malinvestment and maldistribution.
And that's exactly opposite of what comes with the freer market.
And Mises is the one that said, watch out.
If you destroy the currency, you're going to destroy the middle class.
And it's being destroyed.
But the response is still not what we need.
They should be demanding sound money and limited government and get the government off their backs.
And right now, it's how are you going to support us with more giveaways?
And that won't solve the problem.
That's for sure.
I'm going to do a shout out to a couple of our Rumble Ranters.
Brewster McBrewster has given us $5, and we appreciate that.
Our good friend James Cabral, $40.
Very kind.
And James writes, for everyone debating on going to the RPI conference this Saturday, I highly recommend it.
Brazoria County, aka Ron Paul Country, is full of friendly and awesome.
Keep up the good work, Daniel Ron.
Thank you so much, James, for your generosity.
And that is the case, I have to say.
I'm a little biased.
I live here, but put on that next clip just as a reminder.
And we're getting pretty filled up, to be honest, Dr. Paul.
But we do have some tickets left for Saturday the 5th.
Shut up.
Cancel culture and the war on speech.
By the way, I haven't mentioned it, but this very cool logo has been turned into a commemorative t-shirt that will be available for purchase at the event.
We don't usually sell stuff down here, but we're going to sell this shirt because who doesn't want to walk around wearing this?
It's a great conversation opener with people.
So we look forward to seeing as many people on Saturday as we can.
Will they always be nice if they open up the conversation?
That's true, but some people don't mind having that.
We'll emphasize freedom of speech.
You can open up your mouth and tell us what you think.
That's right.
Go ahead, Dr. Paul.
Okay, I am looking forward to the weekend, especially the Saturday events.
We will have an enthusiastic crowd.
We always do.
We always get our room filled up and the enthusiasm is there.
And we will always have some young people there.
And people will have a good time because that's one guarantee I give people.
It's up to you to do it, but you can come and have a good time because like-minded people are more energetic about talking and being friendly.
And you say, well, why do you do this?
You just talk to the audience.
They're all converted.
Well, maybe they are, but you know, for years and years, I thought I was converted a long time ago on a monetary issue.
But I kept going to the conferences to learn more and more.
And I still go to the conferences to get opinions about the current events and where we stand now in the monetary system because, quite frankly, we've never been at this point right now.
We had really turmoil in the 70s when Bratton Woods broke down.
But this is what we're witnessing now is the breakdown of a lot more of this.
So it is a financial, but what we'll be concentrating now this weekend is talking about the breakdown of civil liberties and being able to express ourselves.
And so often I've said, you know, as long as we can defend that First Amendment and speak out and you argue the cases just with the power of the ideas, that that's the best we can do.
Besides, it's much more powerful than the guns.
The guns may get you a temporary victory, but it ends up in tragedy.
And if you have a powerful answer and a powerful philosophy, that is the main way to go in trying to change the country.
And I see the founding of this country as that is.
It was a real philosophic revolution back in the 1700s.
So I'm looking forward to the weekend.
And I want to thank all our viewers today for tuning in.